IRELAND
The controversy over Ireland’s Public Services Card has reached the United Nations with a report to the UN’s Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty stating the card is “forcing disadvantaged people living in poverty to trade their data to access services to which they are already entitled”.
Submitted by Information Rights Project Manager for the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL), Elizabeth Farries, the report said it showed “how technology can be used against people living in poverty”.
The ICCL report is being studied by the Special Rapporteur, Philip Alston and is expected to be included in his report to the UN Human Rights Council on digital surveillance technologies.
Ms Farries said that Government claims to the contrary, the Public Services Card was clearly a biometric card.
She acknowledged that “the horse has bolted” on the issue and welcomed the outcome of an inquiry conducted by the Data Protection Commissioner into the legality of the card in the coming weeks.
“The Government has created a digital check point where people must hand over their biometric data in order to put food on the table,” Ms Farries said.
“It’s deeply unfair, because those required to get the card are least likely to be able to fight it.”
In a separate development, the Government’s centralised pay accord with the 300,000 staff employed across the Public Service appears to be in danger.
The State’s largest Public Service union, Fórsa, fired a shot across the bows of Government with a warning that unless it moves to review the current accord, the whole thing might collapse.
This could result in a free-for-all with various groups and grades pursuing their own individual pay claims at a time when the Government could be facing the effects of the United Kingdom’s no-deal exit from the European Union.
Such a development would bring to an end the centralised agreements which have governed Public Service pay arrangements since 2010.
Dublin, 30 July, 2019
