Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent)
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2013. To ask the Minister for Social Protection her views on whether the proposal to expand the range of public services for which a public services card will be required coupled with the proposal for the card to carry a person's date of birth constitutes the introduction of a national identity card by stealth; the range of legal and privacy issues such an introduction by stealth would give rise to; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [27096/17]

Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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The idea behind the Public Services Card (PSC) and its underlying identity registration and authentication process is to provide public bodies with substantial assurance as to the identity of individuals they are providing services to and to provide individuals with greater assurance that their identity can’t be used by anybody else in dealings with public bodies.

Registration for a PSC is only needed once. All other public bodies will then be able to rely on this without needing to register the same person each time they engage in a public service. This in turn reduces the potential for forgery considerably and consequently reduces the number of people who fraudulently claim to be someone else. It also saves some of the time spent verifying an individual’s identity each time a member of the public tries to access a public service. Small savings for each interaction with an individual represent a considerable overall saving when extrapolated across the public service and the entire population of public service users.

The benefits for an individual are similar to those for a public body. It will make it more difficult for someone else to claim to be that cardholder, thus playing its part in reducing ‘Identity theft’. This in turn reduces the potential for someone fraudulently accessing someone else’s data. It also saves time and effort for the individual in that they do not have to re-register for every supplier of public services who need to verify identity and it reduces the amount of time spent establishing identity for each transaction.

The legislative provisions governing the PSC and the public bodies which may use it are clearly set out in the Social Welfare Consolidation Act 2005 (as amended). This legislation limits the usage of the PSC to those bodies listed and only for those public transaction purposes as defined in it. Accordingly, it is definitively not a national identity card as it has none of the required characteristics of a national identity card such as a person being compelled to carry one or produce it to police if requested or use in private/commercial transactions. In fact, An Garda Síochána may not request a person to produce a PSC. Any proposals in this regard would require changes to primary legislation.

The proposal regarding the date of birth on the PSC is to allow for its inclusion on the face of the card at the request of the cardholder on a voluntary basis. In other words, the date of birth will not be included on the face of the PSC by default but the cardholder may seek to have it there at their choice. This will enable customers who do not have alternative photographic ID to use their PSC to verify their age if they wish.

I trust that this clarifies the position for the Deputy.