The Data Protection Commissioner has uncovered wholesale and widespread 'blagging' techniques used by Private Investigators to breach personal data.
The Commissioner has welcomed the outcome of court proceedings against a Private Investigation firm today, charged with breaching data protection laws when they passed personal data kept by the Department of Social Protection onto various Credit Unions.
It follows an investigation by the office of the Data Protection Commissioner.
The company, MCK Rentals Ltd, pleaded guilty to five sample charges for offences under section 22 of the Data Proection Acts.
Bray District Court convicted the company of each of the five charges and imposed a fine of 1500 euro per offence.
The commissioner noted with disappointment the failure of the part of the Credit Unions in this case:
"The ODPC investigation found no evidence that any Credit Union established from MCK Investigations what methods they were using to obtain access to new address information, and this is particularly shocking in circumstances where trace reports containing new address details of members were returned to Credit Unions within hours, in some cases, of being sought," the Commissioner said in a statement.
