An ICCL investigation has vindicated census sceptics whose reticence to engage was the result of ‘disinformation’ according to the Irish Times.
The Irish Council for Civil Liberties has issued a formal complaint to the Data Protection Commissioner over the sale of personal data by a subsidiary of An Post after an investigation, conducted by the ICCL’s Information Rights and Surveillance officer Olga Cronin, found that data filtered by individual address and Eircode is being sold by GeoDirectory, a subsidiary company of An Post.
The ICCL have claimed that GeoDirectory uses information from the national Census such as income, age and marital status and sells it to both government and private entities – for example insurance companies who use it for ‘claim pattern analysis.’
“GeoDirectory says their social demographic profiles are based on ‘data points from the national Census; income, labour market skills, age, cultural background, family status,’” Ms Cronin said. “This mass processing of our data has to stop which is why we’ve complained to the Data Protection Commissioner,” Ms Cronin said.
Census data is bound by law as confidential, a point made by Irish Times journalist Conor Gallagher in a piece titled “Census 2022: the latest battleground of Irish conspiracy theorists” published a week before the 2022 Census of April 3rd. Gallagher’s article stated that the Census conductor, the Central Statistics Office ‘had been monitoring the spread’ of ‘census misinformation’ online. “In relative terms, the number of people who believe in these conspiracy theories is very small but the issue has caused some concern among officials,” Mr Gallagher wrote. Census sceptics were active in online groups in the run up to Census 2022, citing distrust of agencies sharing private information.
These concerns were branded ‘conspiracy theories’ by the Irish Times but have now been vindicated through the work of the ICCL. “The CSO is prevented by law from sharing identifiable data, including with other State agencies. Data is only shared or published in anonymised statistical form,” Mr Gallagher wrote. The Irish Times’ piece culminated in a warning from the CSO that ‘anyone who refuses to fill out a form may face prosecution.’ “After every census a handful of offenders are prosecuted, mainly to remind people that it is a legal obligation to complete them,” Mr Gallagher wrote.
GeoDirectory, on its website, says it only uses publicly available information, yet it offers clients market data that drives growth ‘by identifying the people you want to target by a range of lifestyle indicators such as age and employment and then pinpoints exactly where you will find them.’ The company sells this market data to clients and calls it ‘GeoPeople.’
“GeoPeople offers neighbourhood level insight to help you gain a deeper understanding of your customer across multiple variables – eg. geographic, national census, social standing. It categorises every address in Ireland into five broad neighbourhood clusters; affluent, advantages, striving, struggling and deprived. Each category is based on criteria from the national census; age, income, labour market skills, cultural background and family status,” GeoDirecty states on its website.
Olga Cronin points out that GeoDirectory acknowledges on its website that its data, when combined with other data, may result in a database containing personal information:
GeoDirectory acknowledges that its data, when combined with other data, may result in a database containing personal data under the GDPR 26/n pic.twitter.com/fnN9AVnJKi
— Olga Cronin (@OlgaCronin) May 3, 2022
“And yet – in the next breath – (GeoDirectory) categorically states that the information it sells is *not* personal data (the ICCL strongly disagrees) and therefore does not apply GDPR,” she said in a Tweet.
And yet – in the next breath – categorically states that the data it sells is *not* personal data (@ICCLtweet strongly disagrees) and therefore does not apply GDPR: pic.twitter.com/BVIRUHWs5b
— Olga Cronin (@OlgaCronin) May 3, 2022
When asked what type of census information it has access to, GeoDirectory told Gript that “We can confirm that GeoDirectory does not hold any personal data and is fully compliant with GDPR.”
The company lists the CSO, ESB Networks, Bord Gais, Aviva, Daft.ie, Tesco, Domino’s Pizza, the Land Development Agency, Waterford County Council and Irish Life Health as clients on it’s ‘successful stories’ client page.
GeoDirectory sells its information to a number of companies and charges €150 for a set of 1,000 data records.