Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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I would like to advise the Deputy that ICT services and IT Infrastructure services for the Department of Finance are provided by the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer (OGCIO) under the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. On behalf of my Department, the OGCIO implements a multi-layered approach to managing and protecting departmental ICT systems, applications, infrastructures and services.

The OGCIO has put in place an industry-leading email security solution for my Department, which filters emails based on industry standard security terminology which includes profanities. All incoming emails are automatically scanned by the email security solution for terminology, including profanities, and if positive the email is quarantined and the recipient is notified that their email has been quarantined. If the recipient believes the email to be business related or quarantined in error they will contact the Service Desk stating this and the email will be released to the recipient.

The email filtering is reviewed and updated based on updated dictionaries and email statistics to keep the solution current. The Department's online contact forms are routed through its email security solution and are supported by the same functionality in relation to profanity. As emails are not blocked, but rather quarantined, a person's legitimate right to petition government will not be blocked unintentionally by the email security solution.