Written answers

Tuesday, 15 December 2020

Department of Justice and Equality

Data Collection

Photo of Catherine MurphyCatherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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460. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality the number of data access requests GSOC and CAB have made to telecommunications and social media companies in the past three years to date in 2020 under the Communications (Retention of Data) Act 2011; the number of access requests that were approved and declined by the companies that the data was requested from; and the reason the data was sought. [43435/20]

Photo of Helen McEnteeHelen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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With regard to the Criminal Assets Bureau, I can inform the Deputy that under section 8 of the Criminal Assets Bureau Act, Bureau officers retain the powers and duties conferred upon them by membership of their parent organisations. Bureau Officers include members of An Garda Síochána who are assigned to the Bureau.

I am advised that all applications made by An Garda Síochána under the Communications (Retention of Data) Act 2011, including those emanating from the Bureau, are dealt with centrally by the Telecoms Liaison Unit of An Garda Síochána.

The information provided in response to the Deputy’s question No. 754 of 24thNovember 2020 with regard to access requests made by An Garda Síochána therefore incorporates the relevant access requests by the Bureau.

In relation to GSOC, that body has provided the following information in accordance with section 81(4)(a)(ii) of the Garda Síochána Act 2005, as amended.

The following table lists all applications that have been made in respect of the 2011 Act between 01 January 2017 and 14 December 2020.

Table – All 2011 Act Applications

Category 2017 Applications 2017 Returns 2017 Refusal from CSP 2018 Applications 2018 Returns 2018 Refusal from CSP 2019 Applications 2019 Returns 2019 Refusal from CSP
Subscriber 15 14 0 11 10 0 0 0 0
Call Data ( Mobile & Landlines) 24 14 0 12 11 0 0 0 0
Internet Subscriber 3 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Internet IP Data 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

The Deputy will be aware of the High Court Judgment of December 2018 which found certain provisions of the 2011 Act inconsistent with EU law and as a consequence the 2011 Act could not be relied on for access to retained data for the purposes of investigating serious crime. While other orders, such as search warrants, would be available to relevant agencies to access data, the 2011 Act was no longer available for the this purpose.

There is no data for 2020 applications as the 2011 Act has not been utilised during this time period.

Photo of Catherine MurphyCatherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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461. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality the number of data access requests the Data Protection Commission has made to telecommunications and social media companies in the past three years to date in 2020 under the Communications (Retention of Data) Act 2011; the number of access requests that were approved and declined by the companies that the data was requested from; and the reason the data was sought. [43437/20]

Photo of Helen McEnteeHelen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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I can advise that the Deputy that the Data Protection Commission has confirmed that it is not an authorised body for the purposes of making requests under Section 6 of the Communications (Retention of Data) Act 2011.

Photo of Catherine MurphyCatherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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462. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality the number of data access requests the special detective unit of An Garda Síochána has made to telecommunications and social media companies in the past three years to date in 2020 under the Communications (Retention of Data) Act 2011; the number of access requests that were approved and declined by the companies that the data was requested from; and the reason the data was sought. [43438/20]

Photo of Helen McEnteeHelen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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I am informed by An Garda Síochána that the breakdown requested by the Deputy with regard to the information provided in response to PQ No. of 754 of 24 November 2020 is not available.

I am advised that the available information as set out below cannot be disaggregated by reference to the number of requests made under the Communications (Retention of Data) Act 2011 by any one particular operational unit , as requests are not categorised in this manner.

The Deputy will recall that in response to the previous question, I provided the following information:

"I am informed by An Garda Síochána that the following statistics set out the number of data access requests made by An Garda Síochána to telecom companies in 2018 and 2019. I am further informed that the figures for 2020 will be prepared at year end and available early 2021.

No. of data access requests made under the Communications (Retention of Data ) Act 2011 by year1
2018 13,545
2019 8,110

1Note: These figures include requests by An Garda Síochána for subscriber data under the Data Protection legislation, as it was not possible within the timeframe for response to disaggregate this information for both of the years requested.

An Garda Síochána have in place internal procedures to ensure that requests are scrutinised prior to issue so as to ensure only valid requests are made to service providers, and where relevant data is known to exist.

It is important to state that the figures above do not represent the entirety of communications-related data that may be provided to An Garda Síochána, for example, under other enactments, search warrants or court orders.

The Deputy may also wish to be aware that access requests made to social media companies do not come within the remit of the Communications [Retention of Data] Act 2011 but are dealt with in accordance with Law Enforcement cooperation guidelines which have been put in place by the companies.

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