The head of the department with primary responsibility for the Public Services Card project has agreed that it would have been “preferable” if a full business case had been prepared for it at its inception.

The Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection, Regina Doherty, faced calls for her resignation last night as the fallout from the Data Protection Commissioner’s investigation into the Public Services Card continued.

A scam in which hospital patients received letters advising them they had won money in a lottery has been reported to An Garda Síochána.

The data protection watchdog is seeking an “urgent” briefing from Facebook in light of the social media company’s announcement that it plans to merge parts of WhatsApp, Instagram, and Messenger.

The President Michael D Higgins has signed the Data Protection Bill 2018 into law.

The Data Protection Commissioner is likely to start the investigation into the alleged data breach at Independent News and Media within the coming weeks, as she dismissed any potential conflict of interest in attending an event organised by the company yesterday.

Political parties, charities and sporting organisations are scrambling to become compliant with the most comprehensive data protection legislation ever introduced by the EU, data security experts have warned.

The EU’s top court will issue a ruling today which could have major implications for all exam bodies and the rights of candidates to examine their own test papers.

The country’s largest supermarket group has reassured customers after it was targetted in a cybercrime attack aimed at extracting credit and debit card details.

Users of the online learning portal on the Irish National Teachers Organisation (INTO) website have been warned of a data breach.

The Cork Education and Training Board (ETB) has apologised for a data security breach which affected a handful of staff.

The material was lost by an employee while moving between branches of AIB in the city for a meeting.

At least €800,000 in benefits has been withheld from welfare recipients who failed to sign up for a public services card after they were told to by the Department of Social Protection.

Tusla chief executive Fred McBride has said measures have been taken to ensure there can be no repeat of the issues in the Maurice McCabe case.

A legal row over data protection has erupted between the Rape Crisis Network of Ireland (RCNI) and a State agency over its right to publish information gathered from abuse victims.

A register collating all significant loans by banks to individuals is on course to be up and running by the end of 2017, as the Central Bank works to address privacy concerns.

Tánaiste and Minister for Social Protection Joan Burton confirmed 25 data breaches had been identified in her department following investigations over the past five years.

A DNA database — promised more than eight years ago —will be up and running in the coming weeks, Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald has said.

The HSE says an investigation is continuing after confidential patient files were found on a footpath.

The Office of the Data Protection Commissioner has said it has contacted its counterpart in Canada over the Ashley Madison data dump, amid claims that as many as 110,000 Irish email addresses may have been included in the data breach.

The HSE has confirmed that a number of people were able to see one person's application for GP care for under 6's because of a website glitch last night.

The controversial new postcode system will not be introduced until "satisfactory solutions" are put in place to address "serious concerns", the Data Protection Commissioner has confirmed.

Irish Water last night denied there had been any data protection breach as a result of a "scripting error" which saw it issue 6,329 letters to property owners with the right address but the wrong name printed on them.

A possible breach of data protection is being investigated at Irish Water after it is claimed the company used incorrect names on letters sent to over 6,000 customers.

The body tasked with regulating private investigators has no target date for introducing regulations despite being set up 10 years ago.

The Office of the Data Protection Commissioner is investigating claims that the Department of Social Protection gave personal information to private investigators who claimed to be State officials.

The Data Protection Commissioner has said it is disappointed that a data breach at Paddy Power that affected 120,000 Irish customers was not reported to its office sooner.

The Office of the Data Protection Commissioner is in discussions with an Irish Genealogy website which left personal data open to identity thieves.

Google has been deluged with requests by people wanting their names removed from its search engine under their ‘right to be forgotten’.

Fianna Fáil European candidate for Dublin Mary Fitzpatrick is facing complaints from the Data Protection Commissioner after voters received pre-recorded ‘robocalls’ from her on the eve of voting.

Eircom restored its email service to 350,000 customers in a “controlled and phased” manner yesterday after a lockdown earlier this week to prevent a security threat.

By any estimation, a demanding seven months ahead for Mr Justice Nial Fennelly.

Information on Garda station recordings came to light in 2011. How the practice was dealt with by the various arms of the State is now the issue, writes Cormac O’Keeffe

The Garda Ombudsman said a report they published in June 2013 — detailing the recording of phone conversations at a Garda station — was a “high-profile case” which had attracted “considerable public awareness”.

The two garda whistle-blowers had “no basis” for continuing to trawl Garda computer data and disclosing it outside the force once they had reported their allegations of malpractice, the State’s data watchdog has said.

Four telephone companies were hit with monetary penalties yesterday for making unsolicited marketing calls and sending spam emails and text messages to customers.

The American owners of Clare-based Loyaltybuild Ltd last month agreed to pay a $30m (€22.3m) settlement for data protection breaches across the Atlantic.

Electricity customers have become the latest to fall prey to the data protection debacle at Loyaltybuild as gardaí yesterday announced a fraud squad probe into breaches at the company.

The Road Safety Authority and the Data Protection Commissioner have begun investigations into how private correspondence from motorists could be viewed by other applicants on the National Driver Licence Service (NDLS) website.

Schools and students face disruption from tomorrow as industrial action by the Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI) commences.

The pro-life group Youth Defence has contacted gardaí after its website became the target of hackers who claimed the charity is effectively a US-funded group focused on preventing abortion in Ireland.

One of Ireland's largest pizza take-out chains has been spared a criminal conviction for sending unsolicited spam emails.

The Office of the Data Protection Commissioner has confirmed it will begin examining allegations that data from Irish Facebook users has been passed on to the US National Security Agency (NSA).

Certain gardaí have been accessing the garda PULSE system inappropriately to look at information on celebrities, according to the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner.

The Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI) is to ask the Government to bring in legislation to facilitate the establishment of a register of the financial interests of TV and radio presenters.

The Department of Justice has defended the growing number of cases of gardaí accessing emails and said existing laws allowed for the practice.

The former operators of the State’s National Procurement Service website e-tenders has had to apologise after it used the NPS database to email clients while criticising the new version of the website.