Political parties will have to reveal to the Data Protection Commissioner if they are processing personal data gathered during polling, where practices such as party activists posing as pollsters may have been used. Data protection experts said a key issue would be whether any personal data was gleaned from voters by either party, and if so, how it was used. GDPR“If you didn’t keep personally identifiable information, and just kept statistical information, that doesn’t raise data protection questions,” said Simon McGarr, a solicitor and expert in the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). “There isn’t really much of a difference between the main obligations under data protection law today and as it was three years ago,” he said. She said there was a “latent culture” in some political parties “in which deception was not only tolerated, but encouraged”.

Source: The Irish Times June 09, 2021 13:16 UTC