KENNY QUESTIONS COMMISSIONER HAWKES ON KEY EURO DATA PROTECTION ISSUES

Posted on October 9, 2013 4:04 PM   |   Permanent Link   

Dublin Bay North Labour TD and member of the Oireachtas Justice Committee Sean Kenny today asked Data Protection Commissioner, Mr. Billy Hawkes, questions concerning biometric passports, data theft and fraud and the controversial issue of surveillance by intelligence agencies.

"In terms of biometric passports, I Mr. Hawkes stated that there were measures being put in plact that would treat biometric data as sensitive personal data and needs to be protected." This is something I very much agree with; while biometric data in a passport will make passports more secure, the data involved is so personal that extra measures to protect it are warranted."

"Mr Hawkes stated that in terms of data theft and fraud on the internet, efforts were being made to increase resources available to law enforcement agencies across the EU that will ensure they are better able to confront increasingly sophisticated criminals. The challenge here, said Mr. Hawkes, is to achieve this without making it harder for the majority of law abiding citizens to access and use the internet."

"On intelligence agenicies, Mr. Hawke said that while recently intelligence gathering by American agencies was in the news, the issue was also an important EU issue. He told me that EU Member States had signed up to Data Retentive directives, which means that records of phonecalls will be held. He said it was important and justified that this was a political issue in terms of the need to find a balance between the need for this kind of data retention and that he was glad that the public and political spheres were more aware of this issue because it meant that the issue would be debated."

"I appreciated the answers that Mr. Hawkes gave me. He struck me as someone very much on top of his brief and I know he does a good job keeping abreast of developments in data protection across Europe."