Be the first to comment!Commissioner curtails dissemination of sensitive data – AD
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Alternattiva Demokratika said this morning that the “Data and Information Protection Commissioner issued a statement on Monday 21 January 2013 to curtail dissemination of sensitive data of vulnerable voters in hospitals and retirement homes.
“The provisions of article 82 in the General Elections Act provides for the information relative to residents in retirement homes and patients in hospitals to be supplied to the Electoral Commission as well as to political parties on a daily basis as from date when the writ proclaiming the date of the general election is published. In the case of hospitals this information is to include wards where patients are placed.”
Carmel Cacopardo, AD Deputy Chaiperson, questioned “the purpose of providing such lists of patients in hospitals, so early before the polling day when, I would say, the majority of those patients will be returning home before polling day and will not be casting their vote at the hospital.”
The Information and Data Protection Commissioner replied that “the Electoral Commission should require the submission of data, in terms of article 82 of the General Elections Act, not earlier than as from the Monday before polling day.”
AD said that “the Information and Data Protection Commissioner was replying to a complaint submitted by Carmel Cacopardo on the 18th December 2012 on behalf of Alternattiva Demokratika with reference to the provisions of articles 80, 81, 82, 83 and 84 of the General Elections Act amended during one of the last sittings of Parliament. The recommendation of the Data and Information Protection Commissioner is copied to the Chief Electoral Commissioner.”
Carmel Cacopardo welcomed the recommendation of the Data and Information Protection Commissioner “which cuts down to size the draconian provisions of the law which was agreed to unanimously in Parliament thereby protecting patients from the unwarranted intrusion of political parties PNPL.”
Prof. Arnold Cassola AD Spokesman for International and EU Affairs stated that with this recommendation data protection is following the norm in the EU.
“The PN and PL must learn to respect voters, and even more so vulnerable voters who are in hospitals and homes and stop using them for their own egoistic party needs.”
