29th September 2008

Office of the Data Protection Commission

Canal House

Station Road,

Portarlington

Co. Laois

RE: Submission on the Proposed Amendment to the Data Protection Legislation

Dear Sir/Madam,

I would welcome the amendments in the Data Protection Legislation as we feel that the information contained in these records needs to be protected. There are a number of issues that I think it would be important to clarify in relation to the proposed amendments:

  1. In terms of the period of 100 years the suggested amendment includes 2 options one, which commences from the date of birth and the second that commences from the date the record, was created. While I can see the reason for both as someone who deals with records of this nature frequently I believe that having two dates will pose some operational difficulties. Which should be used when both are available, and will that decision be made by the person processing the request?
  1. In terms of the operation of the amendment I see one area, which I believe to be a difficulty, and that is that the amendments do not fall in line with decisions that have been made by the Office of the Information Commissioner and indeed the Information Commissioner herself. She has directed that the Rotunda Hospital would release information contained in these records to individuals who believe that they are related to the requester. The Hospital is currently involved in High Court proceedings to challenge the release of this information, which we consider to be personal. We also believe that this information was obtained in confidence for a purpose other then that which the requester now wishes to use it for. However, the key point here is that in the current situation the two pieces of legislation will be telling us to go in opposing directions.

At the time this issue commenced with the Information Commissioner we contacted the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner and indicated our concerns, as we cannot be certain of the relationship of the requester to these individuals which then posed a difficulty with whether the correct death certificate was being provided, at the time we were advised that due to the fact that the records related to a deceased individual then they should be outside Data Protection.

The Hospital’s view is that these records and the information contained therein was given on the basis that it would be treated as confidential and was given for the sole purpose of acquiring medical care, we feel that this is extremely important and that this should extend beyond death, and while this amendment does not go that far we would be of the view that the timeframe should be 100 years from the date of creation of the record.

  1. One final point in relation to the proposed amendment, we have been in consultation with the National Archives in relation to our own records and one of the archivists there indicated that the National Archives suggested a situation where individuals who wished to access this data would be signed up in some way as processors of the data. The Hospital would be strongly opposed to this as we believe that it weakens the amendments that are currently being suggested.

Once again in general the Hospital would be strongly supportive of these proposed changes and indeed we would be of the view that given the nature of our own records held in this area, and indeed the reasons why they were created that even more protection should be afforded them.

Yours sincerely,

______

Lorraine Jordan

Information Manager

Information Management Department

Rotunda Hospital