Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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585. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the date on which the public services card was first introduced. [2954/18]

Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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586. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the date on which the safe 2 process was introduced; and when the first procedures under safe 2 took place. [2955/18]

Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 585 and 586 together.

The acronym SAFE stands for ‘Standard Authentication Framework Environment’. It is a standards-based framework for establishing and verifying an individual’s identity for the purposes of accessing public services.

This SAFE standard has four levels –

SAFE 0 = No assurance of identity

SAFE 1 = Balance of probabilities

SAFE 2 = Substantial assurance

SAFE 3 = Beyond reasonable doubt

The Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection is implementing SAFE 2 registration on a phased basis with its customers and customers of other public services that require identity verification to a substantial level of assurance.

SAFE Level 2 (SAFE2) registration, used by the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection, allows a person to verify their identity once not just for access to services provided by the Department but also for an increasing number of public services provided by other State agencies – for example the Passport office. As more public service providers move to using SAFE2, people who are already registered to SAFE2 will not need to repeatedly register their identity information when accessing public services.

Once a person is registered to SAFE2 they may be issued with a Public Services Card (PSC). This is essentially a physical token that proves a person has been SAFE2 registered.

The SAFE project commenced as a result of a Government decision of 29 June 2004 (S290/05/25/0025).

The first Public Services Card was issued following the first SAFE registration on the 26^thof October 2011. SAFE registration and associated PSC issuance has been rolled out to the public on a phased basis since that date. To date, in excess of 3 million PSCs have issued.

I hope this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.