Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Anti-Austerity Alliance)
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547. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the measures in place to ensure that private companies that participate in job activation schemes such as JobPath comply with data protection laws and do not seek personal information that might not be of direct relevance to their services. [41219/16]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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Ireland’s Public Employment Service (PES) is managed by my Department and delivered directly by its own Intreo service as well as by contracted private providers i.e. companies delivering the JobPath, Local Employment Service (LES) and Job Club services.

These providers act as agents of the Department for the purpose of delivering these services and we are subject to strict obligations imposed by the Department in terms of data protection in the same way as other providers including LES and JobClubs. The providers are contractually required to register with the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner and are subject to the same provisions of data protection legislation as departmental staff. Data protection legislation requires that personal data shall be kept only for one or more specified and lawful purposes and that personal data shall be used and disclosed only in ways compatible with these purposes. The legislation also requires that the data should be adequate, relevant and not excessive. Any suspected breach of the data protection legislation will be investigated by the Department and may also be a matter for the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner.

I hope this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.