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THE ROAD SAFETY Authority has only published provisional data on road traffic collisions for the past five years due to GDPR concerns.
The issue was raised in a written Dáil question last month by Labour leader Ivana Bacik.
She asked if Transport Minister Eamon Ryan’s attention has been “drawn to the fact that the Road Safety Authority has not published any data on road traffic collisions since 2016”.
She then asked when up-to-date data would be made available.
In response, Minister of State at the Department of Transport Hildegarde Naughton said she was advised that “in light of GDPR requirements, the RSA is currently reviewing their road traffic collision data sharing policies and procedures”.
Minister Naughton added that “individual record-level data cannot be shared until this review is concluded over the coming months”.
One this review is completed, Minister Naughton said the “RSA expect to implement revised policies and procedures to permit GDPR compliant access to relevant RTC data”.
She then pointed to “provisional aggregated data” that the RSA has been publishing in the meantime.
The EU’s General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, was adopted in 2016 and came into force on 25 May, 2018.
GDPR’s primary aim is to enhance people’s control and rights to their personal data.
According to the RSA’s research department, all data from 2018 onwards is “provisional and subject to change”.
In a statement to The Journal, a spokesperson for the RSA confirmed that it is in the process of reviewing its road traffic collision data sharing policies and procedures.
The spokesperson explained that this is being done “in light of the fact that the data must be treated as personal data in order to comply with GDPR demands”.
They added: “Record-level RTC data cannot be shared until this review is complete but we expect this to be finalised in the coming months.”
“At that point, the RSA will have new policies and procedures in place for access to RTC information and data,” said the spokesperson, who also highlighted the RSA’s provisional aggregated data.
“These new policies and procedures will be underpinned by a variety of legislative instruments, as well as specific measures designed to share data in a GDPR compliant manner.”
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Another example of a government body hiding behind GDPR. Since 2016/2018 is a long time wait for a review to be conducted Nobody wants personal information published. People only want statistics.
@Jondis88: hiding behind or abiding by? Seeing as they used to provide the information before someone flagged the issue your comment seems more cynical then factual.
@Paul Clancy: hiding, it’s not that hard to understand
Where was GDPR when during covid we had to sign a book with our name and phone numbers to get into a pub or restaurant, everyone cud see anyone else’s name and phone number and was no guidelines on how businesses handled this information, GDPR my u know
GDPR has been in place for more than 5 years.
Why are implementation, policy & procedures still being discussed? What have the RSA been doing for the last half-decade?
Ireland seems to have a real difficulty in understanding GDPR, what is the problem here?
@: Laziness. That’s the problem right there.
Gdpr the greatest protector of beaurocracy for both public services and private organisations. Yet Facebook, twitter etc can publish slanderous material from unknown sources without redress
Where is the balance there?
This follows hot on the heals of the original SHAWW act, but thankfully that has brought safety management to a new level. I cannot say the same for GDPR though.
GDPR relates to people’s personal information not satisics of accidents or other general information, dosent add up
@Mark Dawson: so true – besides the akward reality that EVERY organisation in Ireland were asked to be prepared in advance for how to handle any changes GDPR might have on their organisations – it simply embarrassing for a govt agency to be this inefficient and far behind updating HOW they do their job and meet any new requirements GDPR may have – as many others have said this is a distraction – all these people were paid to work from home for 2 years and could and should have done whatever paper shuffling required to be able to report statistics while respecting personal data – safe bet EVERY other eu country has been able to report stats on road accidents since GDPR was implemented – who gets to ask RSA for some clear explanations – guarantee you it’s not genuinely a GDPR issue
Can we get rid of all these quangos and place responsibility where it belongs, the very well-paid Minister for Transport? The RSA was set up to give the well-connected nice little earners when they retire.
Just redact the personal details ffs.
Not rocket science.
GDPR is really becoming a problem in many way’s. Relax it or get wrid of it simple.
Safety engineers need that statistical data to be able to do their jobs. All that is needed is location, collision type, vehicles involved and date and time. How is that breaking GDPR rules, it simply isn’t.
That’s just an excuse, create unique complex identifiers for anything that wouldve been identifiable and delete the original identifier.
Nonsense! Just a poor understanding of GDPR on the RSA’s side. There is a specified purpose for publishing (ie processing personal data) in that manner as it serves a public health interest.
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