Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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673. To ask the Minister for Health if he will clarify whether the transfer of data and/or records from his Department that is transferred to other departments, State bodies and local authorities is in aggregated form or on an individual basis; and the reason the data and/or records are provided. [3084/24]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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My Department shares data with other Departments and state bodies to deliver official functions and meet obligations provided for in various legislation. This data sharing can involve aggregated and/or individual-level information.

Data protection law covers situations in which personal data of an individual is processed. Personal data is only shared or an aggregate or individual level where it is relevant, essential, and necessary to provide a service or function. In such instances, my Department is committed to protecting the rights and privacy of data subjects and adhering to obligations under data protection legislation.

Further, the Department of Health makes available Research Microdata Files (RMF) for the annual Healthy Ireland survey to researchers (which may include researchers working for state bodies). These RMFs do not contain any personal data (such as names or addresses) on the survey respondents but contain individual level responses to the survey. Researchers must apply to the Department with detailed information on the purpose of the research they are conducting, why access to the Healthy Ireland RMF is required, how the research will be of public benefit, previous experience working with microdata, their approach to statistical disclosure control and full details of the IT security that will be employed to secure the microdata. If a researcher application is approved, RMF files are then securely transferred to the approved researchers who commit to only holding the data on computers with no internet access.