The coalition government this week passed a law which allows the Data Protection Commission to declare cases “confidential” and making it a criminal offence to share information about these cases.
I’ve been always paying for my TV license in cash, at the An Post window. Always used “Occupier” as my name. Imagine my surprise when one year they requested my name. I invoked GDPR, and got the response that this case was exempt. So, I initiated a process with the DPC. It’s still not done, but I have researched on how to escalate it to the European Commission. I wonder whether this law is targeting governmental exceptions, so that they don’t get escalated beyond Ireland.
Simon McGarr who does a lot of legal work around data, confidentiality and GDPR found out last year that An Post and the Ordinance Survey were collecting data on every household in Ireland through “Geodirectory”, he had a mastodon thread about it here.