Concerns raised as teachers required to use controversial card for online payslips

Paschal Donohoe at the launch of the introduction of the public services card in January 2020. Picture: RollingNews.ie

The mandating of teachers to get a public services card (PSC) in order to receive a new digital payslip has been branded “potentially discriminatory”.

Privacy consultant Daragh O’Brien of Castlebridge said that requiring teachers and principals to sign up for the State's controversial services card “has the potential to be discriminatory” given it “doesn’t seem necessary and proportionate to create this additional layer of bureaucracy”.

Necessity and proportionality are the two key tests under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) as to whether or not the processing of personal data by a body is lawful or not.

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The PSC is the controversial welfare services card first introduced by the Department of Social Protection in 2011.

The card, and its online counterpart MyGovID, were the subject of a marquee ruling by the Data Protection Commission in 2019 which stated that mandating that the card be used to access services other than those relating to social welfare was illegal.

The ruling was challenged by the department in the courts. The case was settled in December 2021, with the State acknowledging that mandating the use of the card to access a service is illegal unless an alternative route to that service is provided.

The Department of Education first committed to phasing out paper-based payslips entirely in late 2021, with a target date of the third quarter of last year.

At the time, the department was spending in the region of €1.7m each year on sending physical payslips to its roughly 120,000 staff each fortnight.

When the Department of Education was queried as to how mandating the possession of a PSC in order to access the new payslip tallies with the DPC decision from 2019, a spokesperson said that the service is offered “on an opt-in basis”.

“Individuals who do not wish to avail of this service can continue to receive a paper payslip and are under no obligation to create an account,” said the spokesperson.

It is unclear how the department will align with the DPC decision should paper payslips be phased out entirely.

One second-level teacher working in Dublin told the Irish Examiner that the chief issue with the new electronic payslips is “it’s a hassle to get the card”.

“It sounds like a process to change over, to be honest,” they said. 

It’s difficult to organise getting the public services card in the first place as you have to make an appointment during the working day.”

Mr O’Brien said: “Digital payslips are in place all across the private sector. My own company has digital payslips, but we don’t require people to sign up to MyGovID.”

It is unclear why the Government has elected to use MyGovID as the portal for accessing the new payslips.

When the project was first mooted in late 2021, the then secretary general of the Department of Education Seán Ó Foghlú said only that the security of personal data would be a priority.

The issue of viable alternatives for accessing State services has been a recurring one since the State settled its case with the DPC in December 2021.

In the case of the National Childcare Scheme, for example, the only way to access its subsidies without a MyGovID account at the scheme’s inception in November 2019 was via a paper-based application service that did not go live until several months after the NCS launched.