Also speaking at the conference was the Data Protection Commissioner, Billy Hawkes. With a presentation entitled “What future for data protection?”, Hawkes began by presenting a background of the commission’s recent work and the experience as revealed by its latest data protection and privacy survey.
“Significant continuity is…evident in pattern of complaints being received by our office. They rarely relate to internet companies despite our EU level focus on oversight of them,” said Hawkes.
“The future of data protection law is uncertain, due to disagreement at EU level of what the content of data protection should be, raising such basic issues as what the role of individual consent should be in the context of data protection as a fundamental right. And how the so called ‘one-stop-shop’ is going to operate is one of the key areas of disagreement and where the outcome will be important for the work of our office.”
Hawkes revealed that, overall, incidents of breaches had reduced somewhat, but remain significant.
In 2012, there were 1,592 reported breaches, with 1,507 in 2013.
The top categories of breach remain unchanged, with mailing breaches in first place, followed by web site security and theft of IT equipment.
“And we suspect that many are not reported at all to us,” said Hawkes.
“This year’s survey has shown that privacy of personal information is not the most important issue for Irish people, Irish people being practical people,” said Hawkes. “A good health service and crime prevention are of greater importance, as you would expect. But it is interesting that data protection is still seen as quite important for Irish people.”
“It is more important than protection of consumer rights or ethics in public office.”
Consistent with other surveys, health data comes top of the list of personal information to be protected. Somewhat interestingly, financial data comes second, according to the DPC survey.
Despite what many media headlines might suggest, Hawkes said that complaints about the like of Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are not as common as might be expected.
“We receive relatively few complaints about the activities of internet companies that attract a lot of controversy in other countries. Again, a survey carried out at EU level in 2011 seems to suggest that we in Ireland are far more comfortable with privacy implications of using such sites than most other Europeans and our survey also tends to bear out that conclusion.
“It is also interesting that Irish people consider that they themselves bear the main responsibilities for protecting their personal data when operating on social media networks. In fact, this is the highest percentage in the European Union.”
While the number of overall complaints is down compared to the previous year the “overall complexity has increased”.
“We are having to deal with more complaints from outside Ireland in relation to internet companies established here. Some of these are formal complaints inspired by lobby groups such as Europe Versus Facebook.”
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