Data commissioner believes dispute will be ‘amicably resolved’

The data protection commissioner believes the dispute between the Garda chief and the Oireachtas Public Accounts Committee will be resolved without any need for the data commissioner to enforce the powers of his office.

He also said it would be legally challenging if the Garda whistleblower at the centre of the controversy sought immunity under the Data Protection Act.

A spokeswoman for the commissioner yesterday told the Irish Examiner: “We expect that this matter, between two organs of the State, will be amicably resolved without recourse to the use of enforcement powers of this office.”

Those powers include launching formal investigations and issuing legally enforceable notices including the deletion of personal data.

The commissioner, Billy Hawkes, sent a letter to the PAC claiming a criminal offence may have been committed by the individual who gave the fixed notice penalty points dossier to PAC chairman John McGuinness.

The whistleblower claimed the dossier shows that millions of euro have been lost by the force’s failure to collect fixed penalty point fines. Section 8(b) of the Data Protection Act 1988 states disclosure may be permitted if it is required for the purpose of “assessing or collection of any tax, duty, or other monies owed or payable to the State”.

However, the data commissioner’s office does not appear to believe that the whistleblower may be entitled to protection under the act.

“In relation to your question about the potential application of Section 8(b),we consider that such an interpretation of its application in a case such as this may be challenging from a legal perspective,” said the spokeswoman.

Asked why Mr Hawkes intervened in the dispute by issuing the letter, the spokeswoman said it fell within the statutory function of the commissioner to investigate data breach reports made to him by organisations.

She said in this case it was a communication received from the Garda commissioner whose assessment concluded that the matter needed to be reported to the data protection office.

She said Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan sought assistance from Mr Hawkes’s office for the data to be returned to gardaí. It was on foot of this that the data commissioner contacted the PAC “given his remit to ensure the protection of personal data generally”.

Under Section 10 of the Data Protection Act, the commissioner must investigate any complaints from individuals who feel that personal information about them is not being treated in accordance with the act, unless he is of the opinion that such complaints are “frivolous or vexatious”.

In his letter to the PAC, Mr Hawkes stated that while he wasn’t aware of the specifics of the case, he believed the dossier should be returned to gardaí as it had been taken away and given to the PAC without the authorisation of the Garda commissioner.

A former diplomat, Mr Hawkes has hit the headlines a number of times this year, most recently over the worst data breach in the history of the State at the Ennis-based Loyaltybuild, which manages customer loyalty schemes in Ireland and across Europe for millions of people.