Government slapped with record €550k fine over biometric data use in Public Services Card

Biometric data refers to any information that can identify a person by their physical characteristics — for example, via a fingerprint or, in the Public Services Card’s (PSC) case, a photograph. Picture: Gareth Chaney Collins

The Data Protection Commission has hit the State with a €550,000 fine, the largest GDPR penalty for a public body, for processing people’s biometric data without a legal basis via the Public Services Card.

The DPC said that the Government must now discontinue processing such data using the PSC within 9 months unless it can find a legal basis for doing so.