Michael McCarthy (Cork South West, Labour)
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75. To ask the Minister for Social Protection if she will report on the introduction of the public services card; the steps that her Department has taken to date to ensure that this new facility does not give rise to any data protection or identity theft concerns; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [35258/14]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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The Public Services Card (PSC) has been introduced to enable individuals gain access to public services more efficiently and with a minimum of duplication of effort, while at the same time preserving their privacy to the maximum extent possible. The PSC is designed to replace other cards within the public sector such as the Free Travel Pass and the Social Services Card (SSC) of this Department and to make it easy for providers of public services to verify the identity of customers.

Considerable progress has been made in the roll out of the Public Service Card. Approx. 925,000 PSCs have been produced to date. These include c.241,000 Free Travel variants.

A PSC is currently issued following a registration process which is called a SAFE registration process. This involves the capture of an individual’s photograph and signature and the verification of identity data already held by the Department. Both the PSC and SAFE registration are provided for in primary legislation.

Face-to-Face registration is taking place countrywide in 81 offices of the Department for individual applicants for a Personal Public Service (PPS) Number and people applying for or in receipt of social protection payments or benefits, including Jobseeker payments, Free Travel entitlement, Child Benefit payments, State Pensions, and One Parent Family payments.

Selected low-risk customers have also been invited to avail of a ‘postal’ registration process which involves utilisation, with consent, of information already provided to other Government agencies, for example, a photograph supplied in connection with an application for a passport.

In addition, selected pensioners over 66 who collect their payments at a Post Office are being invited to register by post. This process includes the person providing two passport-standard photographs.

The Department is committed to protecting the rights and privacy of individuals in accordance with the Data Protection Acts. The Office of the Data Protection Commissioner was consulted and involved in card design discussions. The card design reflects those discussions. The card has multiple protection mechanisms, all of the highest current international standards, to prevent and detect tampering with the physical card and its contents. As well as some hidden security features, the card contains visual measures such as its overall graphical design, branding, microprinting, use of optical variable ink and a kinegram. In addition, a PSC and a card reader will communicate with each other by cryptographic means. Only card readers specifically programmed to accept PSCs can undertake this functionality.

The SAFE registration process and the roll-out of the PSC holds a number of benefits for the customers, the Department and for other Public Service bodies. These include improvement in existing cards (e.g. Social Services Cards and Free Travel) through better security features, considerably reducing the potential for forgery and fraudulent use, a reduction in the rate of fraud and errors caused by incorrectly identified and authenticated people, and improvement in the efficiency of every service delivered by the State through the removal of the duplication caused by multiple agencies each solving the problem of identity and authentication themselves.

The introduction of the card, in addition to providing a more efficient service for customers, is also helping to deter and prevent irregularities, including identity theft. The Department has deployed facial image matching software to help detect and deter duplicate SAFE registrations. This has led to the identification of 36 cases (individuals) of facial matches. Some prosecutions are pending as a result and it is estimated that, at a minimum, the level of fraud detected and stopped to date amounts to in excess of €1 million.