Passport Data Access Figures Revealed

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has given out the personal passport data of citizens upon request from State authorities on more than 2,000 occasions since the beginning of 2019.

Under the Data Protection Act 2018, which was brought into law in order to bring Ireland in legislative alignment with the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the personal data of people may be accessed for reasons other than which it was collected only in specific situations - they being threats to national security, the investigation or prevention of criminal offences, or in order for the provision of legal advice or the defence of legal rights.