Probe into PSC sparked by digital rights ‘mass action’

The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform was the body that instigated the expansion of use of the PSC in 2016 to services outside its welfare remit, such as for passport or driving licence applications. Picture: Gareth Chaney Collins

The Data Protection Commission has commenced an investigation into the State’s Public Services Card on the back of a “mass action” taken against the PSC by digital rights advocates.

The probe, the latest of a string of such inquiries taken by the DPC into the card, resulted from 670 identical complaints being made to the Commission regarding the use of the card for services other than for welfare purposes, the card’s initial purpose.

The Commission told Digital Rights Ireland, the advocacy group which sparked the mass action known as No2PSC, that it has “now decided to commence an inquiry into certain processing operations carried out by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (DPER)”.

DPER was the body that instigated the expansion of use of the PSC in 2016 to services outside its welfare remit, such as for passport or driving licence applications.

The DPC ruled in August 2019 that the use of the card for such functions is illegal, a decision eventually appealed to the courts by the Department of Social Protection (DSP). That case has yet to be definitively ruled upon.

However, in the aftermath of that two-year investigation, the State dropped the need to hold a PSC as a mandatory requirement in order to access non-welfare services.

The DPC’s new inquiry will focus on the Single Customer View (SCV) database operated by DPER, which comprises information on citizens from a number of State bodies, including DSP, the Road Safety Authority, the Revenue Commissioners, and the HSE.

Information contained within the SCV includes a person’s PPS number, date of birth, address, place of birth, and mother’s maiden name - much of the same information contained on the PSC.