Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick, Fine Gael)
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122. To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources his views that there are potential data protection issues involved in sourcing information from television providers in order to source information for An Post to collect TV licence fees; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [22943/15]

Alex White (Dublin South, Labour)
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As the Deputy will be aware, the Government gave approval for the preparation of legislation to enable the TV Licence Collecting Agent (currently An Post) to access the subscription data held by TV service providers, including Sky and UPC.

The legislation will be designed to allow the Collecting Agent to have access to the information solely for its statutory functions in relation to licence fee collection and the commercial confidentiality of the information will be safeguarded.

My Department has been advised by the Office of the Attorney General on the matter and the legislative provisions will be drafted in consultation with the Data Protection Commissioner to ensure that it takes full account of data minimisation and data security principles.