Thread by @Tupp_Ed

Today’s Sunday Times (um, [insert link to print paper]) reports that the DPC’s #PSC investigation report has found @welfare_ie’s claimed legislative power

“does not provide a sound legal basis to compel people to have a card to access other public services”

As the state cannot rely on consent (as any consent could not meet the requirement for being freely given, given the power imbalance), this- if it stands- would mean that all of the processing done without another legal basis would be in breach.

I gave evidence to the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Social Protection on 8th February this year, trying to warn of this self inflicted crisis.

kildarestreet.com/committees/?id…

It should be remembered that using the #PSC as a ID card and requiring it to access other public services, was not a @welfare_ie project but the brainchild of the Dept of Public Expenditure & Reform @IRLDeptPER

The state has attempted to present the #PSC card as both something voluntary but also legislatively required.

This gave it not one, but two legal grounds for processing.

Hence “Mandatory but not compulsory” as the Minister pithily put it.

In reality Gov had no legal basis for requiring the #PSC card statewide.

As the DPC’s draft report (quoted above) finds, it never had a legislative basis.

And its fallback position- that the processing is by consent of the user, is invalid because the consent has been compelled

Here’s what the Article 29 Working Group (the collective of Data Protection Regulators) has to say about public authorities trying to rely on consent (after GDPR) as a legal basis for processing data:

You can read that #PSC illegality report story online at the @SunTimesIreland now

https://twitter.com/marktighest/status/1036168455320481792?s=21

There are quite a few public authorities and their data processors who currently process #PSC data, and which would be caught by this finding:

1) National Driver Licence Service by the @RSAIreland

ndls.ie/identity-valid…

2) The Passport Office

dfa.ie/passports-citi…

3) Department of Justice & Equality, for Certificate Of Naturalisation (Citizenship)
citizensinformation.ie/en/social_welf…

Here I am on Morning Ireland, explaining why the @welfare_ie demands that people get a Public Services Card (and that card data is shared across the State) doesn’t have a lawful basis (and certainly not the one they told the DPC)
#PSC
cdn.rasset.ie/manifest/audio…

Here was the roadmap published for all the other Government services which (without a lawful basis) would be made available only to people with #PSC cards

The Department has some few weeks to respond to the DPC report before it’s published.

I think a copy of the report should also be provided to the organisations and individuals whose #PSC complaints were met by a reassurance that the matter was under investigation already.