I move amendment No. 1: In page 26, line 6, after “collect” to insert “relevant” I welcome the Minister of State to the Chamber. Amendment No. 1 seeks to insert the word "relevant", in respect of personal data which can be collected by relevant persons for relevant immigration and social welfare enactments. The purpose of the amendment is to ensure that not only data which are relevant to an immigration or social welfare enactment are collected. While I acknowledge that what constitutes relevant data is unclear, in…

I appreciate and acknowledge the Minister of State's contribution. I am happy to withdraw the amendments.

I move amendment No. 5: 5. In page 27, between lines 24 and 25, to insert the following: “Review (Part 5) 45. The Minister shall, not later than six months following the commencement of this Part and every six months thereafter, oversee a review of the collection and processing of data under this Act, with particular reference to the necessity and proportionality of the continued collection and processing of personal data, including special categories of personal data, for the purposes outlined in section 42.”. Ame…

I am happy to withdraw the amendment on the basis of that response.

I move amendment No. 1: In page 4, between lines 38 and 39, to insert the following: " 'security of the State’ means the territorial integrity and independence of the State from subversive activities by hostile states and from hostile groups within the State, and the safe and ongoing functioning of sovereign authority and the constitutional system of the State, and the security of its citizens (including the rights and freedoms of citizens);". I welcome the Minister. Amendments Nos. 1 to 3, inclusive, attempt to pr…

To clarify, to be honest, much of that makes sense. For my own understanding, in terms of the decision-making process, is it accurate to say that the Minister of the day would not be making a decision on what the security threat is? The Minister makes the decision on whether the application goes to court for the court to decide.

I am happy with those responses.

I am happy to withdraw amendment No. 1.

I move amendment No. 4: In page 5, line 35, to delete "a period of one year, or". Amendments Nos. 4 to 7, inclusive, seek to address the retention periods and safeguards in respect of data retention. Currently, the mechanism in the Bill provides for an automatic period of data retention of one year, which may be varied by the Minister or an authorising judge, depending on the type of data. We need to be clear on this. The European Court of Justice ruling was clear that the duration of each data retention measure mu…

To facilitate my understanding, the Minister should correct me if I misrepresent what was said. She said the period of 12 months meets the requirement regarding what is necessary. Does what is necessary entail only an amount of time and not the individual reasons for the holding of the data?

So the CJEU ruling relates not to specific reasons or the potential crime but to necessity in terms of time?

I thank the Minister.

Could I have a brief clarification? Does the user-data category also include the likes of a person’s – the acronym has gone out of my head-----

Internet protocol, IP, addresses. Does it not include a person’s IP addresses and international mobile equipment identity, IMEI, which obviously involve much more data than a vehicle registration and location? The data are more related to a person’s phone-----

I am sorry for teasing this out on the floor. I am trying to understand stuff as it is happening. In relation to the idea-----

One has to meet that standard or bar.

For example, in relation to IP addresses or anything that one associates with one’s phone, etc., the idea is that it is given voluntarily to phone companies rather than State bodies such as Revenue or the Garda. Even though it is voluntarily given, where it is voluntarily given is differentiated a little in terms of it just being general user data that the Garda or Revenue would have access to anyway.

I move amendment No. 8: In page 8, line 7, to delete “an” and substitute “a serious”. Amendments Nos. 8 and 11 seek to clarify that data retention powers should only be exercised in respect of serious offences or serious revenue offences. It is important we do not see situations where data privacy rights are being trampled over to tackle minor offences. Once again, powers of data retention are exceptional powers which stand down people’s data privacy rights. I am concerned by the perceived weakness of some of the p…

I apologise. We got the groupings quite late and we pre-empted them.

We have pre-empted fake groupings here. I will leave it at that, because the rest of what I have to say applies to the next grouping.