Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
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154. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the number of data breaches experienced by her Department in each of the past ten years and to date in 2024; if a breakdown will be provided on the nature of the breaches; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [41741/24]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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My Department recorded the following number of data breaches in each of the years since 2016 and to date in 2024. No records are available for the period before 2016.

Year Number of data breaches

2016 57

2017 108

2018 226

2019 371

2020 508

2021 646

2022 502

2023 681

2024 to date 538

The vast majority of the confirmed data breaches relate to incidents where individual customer information was accidentally and inadvertently disclosed to third parties, e.g. misaddressed email or postal correspondence. In each of these incidents, the Department followed procedures in accordance with data protection legislation and every effort was made to secure personal data quickly and efficiently. Through Data protection awareness training and ongoing information of staff obligations the level of reported incident has increased year on year.

My Department takes data protection obligations very seriously. In order to protect the personal data of its customers and to minimise data protection incidents, a dedicated Programme Board is in place to oversee data protection matters in the Department.

In addition, my Department has in place a set of data protection policies, standards, procedures and guidelines governing the use of its computer systems and customer data. These policies, procedures and guidelines are kept under constant review and are updated as appropriate.