Staggering Absence of Data Protection Officers

Ireland (SANEPR.com) February 5, 2009 -- The results were presented to the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner, which said that they “point to the need …to ensure that there is a high level of awareness of data protection responsibilities among staff at all levels.”

The results of the only known survey into the prevalence of appointed Data Protection Officers at Ireland’s top organisations in the business and finance sectors are being published in Data Protection Ireland, Volume 2, Issue 1 (January/February 2009 edition), a subscription based publication.


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Notes to Editors

1. Data protection in Ireland is regulated by the Data Protection Acts 1988 and 2003, and the law applies to all organisations in Ireland.

2. Data protection is enforced by the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner. The Data Protection Commissioner is Billy Hawkes.

3. The Office of the Data Protection Commissioner’s website (www.dataprotection.ie) states that in order to comply with the Data Protection Acts 1988 and 2003, organisations should “ensure that the basic principles of data protection are explained to staff [and"> allocate responsibility for compliance and set-out what in-house sanctions may be imposed if correct procedures are not followed.”

4. The survey was conducted during September 2008, by Data Protection Ireland (see 8 below).

5. As part of this survey, 109 of Ireland’s top 1,000 Business & Finance organisations were surveyed on a random basis. 37 of 109 respondents did not know the answer when presented with the survey question, does the firm have a Data Protection Officer (or appropriate person for queries of this nature.) Included in the 37 respondent companies that answered no to this question are eBay, IBM, Dell, Kerry, Oracle, ESB, and Apple.

6. Data Protection Ireland is Ireland’s only (subscription based) journal dedicated to data protection compliance. Samples are available upon request to http://www.pdp.ie The journal, published six times a year, contains practical articles on data protection compliance and invaluable news items to keep subscribers up-to-date with the latest guidance and enforcement action.

7. The Editor of Data Protection Ireland is Rob Corbet, Partner at Arthur Cox, whose firm frequently acts on behalf of the Data Protection Commissioner, Billy Hawkes.

8. Data Protection Ireland is published by PDP, a leading publisher of professional journals in the fields of Data Protection and Freedom of Information. PDP is the market leader in publishing, professional training (public and in-house courses) and data protection protection compliance compliance conferences.

PDP operates under the following brands:

PDP Journals, PDP Training, PDP Conferences, PDP Companies, PDP Publishing, PDP Compliance, PDP Workshops, PDP Recruitment and PDP News.

PDP, Suite 3, Herbert Hall, 16 Herbert Street, Dublin 2, Ireland. Email: pressoffice@pdp.ie

Tel: +353 (0)1 657 1479, Fax: +353 (0)1 633 5853. Website: www.pdp.ie