Sir, – Charities, by their nature, provide services and advocate for vulnerable people. Often these people’s stories, in effect their data, touching on sensitive issues, and in our case at the Rape Crisis Network Ireland, sexual violence, are invaluable in informing the state’s obligations. But these people may stand to lose most from any loss of privacy. Indeed for some the risk is to life.
Vulnerable people trust and interact with the non-governmental charities; we in turn interact with the state, which funds this critical work. any pressure from the state to access vulnerable people’s data is often therefore felt at charity level, with the vulnerable person none the wiser.
It becomes the grave responsibility of charities to act as a buffer between the state’s need for knowledge and insight and the survivors’ need for confidentiality.
Charities can and do provide accountability, transparency and insight to the state and the public debate while protecting their clients; however, the relationship to state is highly unequal, with many charities dependent on state funding.
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In discharging our principal and appropriate duty, which is always to the client or survivor, the statutory funders may experience us as inconvenient or even sometimes obstructive. It is government’s role to ensure we are empowered and protected to be robust in this manner.
The law is firmly on the side of the individuals we serve, but as Elaine Edwards states, "massive government data-sharing projects have continued apace, almost as if the European ruling in Bara [the European Court of Justice ruling restricting same] had not happened" ("Government continues data-sharing projects despite EU ruling", Technology, December 8th).
In a climate of the state ploughing ahead with building capacity for extensive data gathering and sharing across departments, even while serious questions are being raised about a lack of due regard for people’s fundamental right to privacy, charities have a duty to ask challenging questions and indeed to limit compliance if those questions go unanswered. For this we can and indeed have been punished, and government has remained silent.
We need a shift in culture across the whole of government, the charity sector and the public that understands that without data protection, there can be no data collection. Indeed, ill-considered data collection is counterproductive as its result may leave those who fear breach of confidentiality with only one choice, silence and isolation.
The benign good intentions of the incumbents in building these systems are not relevant; after all, the most fundamental fact of democracy is that governments are subject to change. The data, however, no matter how benignly gathered, remains. Government cannot afford to sit on the sidelines on these questions. – Is mise,
CLÍONA SAIDLÉAR,
Executive Director,
Rape Crisis
Network Ireland, Galway.