From Out-Law.com:
Billy Hawkes, Ireland’s Data Protection Commissioner, said that there had been a “disturbing failure of governance” in relation to access to a social welfare database administered by the Department of Social Protection.
In 2012 three insurance companies were each found to have breached Irish data protection laws by failing to notify the Office of the Irish Data Protection Commissioner (ODPC) that they were processing ‘social welfare data’. The ODPC said that it had discovered that Zurich Insurance, FBD Insurance and Travelers Insurance Company each held social welfare data that matched information stored on the Department of Social Protection’s systems, which were not publically accessible.
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