Ministry official to be probed over e-mail

The head of the civil service is to "look into" the involvement of a Home Affairs Ministry official who was on the recipient list of the infamous e-mail sent by Nationalist general secretary Paul Borg Olivier.

"The procedure is that we start from the permanent secretary of the ministry (the Home Affairs Ministry)... I'm not trying to shirk responsibility but that is the procedure, he is away right now. As soon as he is back I will have a word with him," Principal Permanent Secretary Godwin Grima said yesterday.

Labour Party general secretary Jason Micallef said last Friday that Saviour Azzopardi, an assistant director in the Home Affairs Ministry who handles requests for presidential pardons, was one of those who received the e-mail on data sharing sent out to Cabinet and ministerial aides.

The e-mail, which has now become embroiled in controversy after it was mistakenly sent to Labour general secretary Jason Micallef, referred to a meeting at the PN headquarters in which a data sharing strategy was put in place.

The controversial line says: "... every customer care office is being asked to hand all the data on a template. The data (excel) should include 1) personal data of persons who move a complaint to the customer care of the ministry/parliamentary secretariat in the past eight months 2) type of request 3) action and 4) results (pending)."

Labour's charge has been that this type of information gathering is illegal. But Mr Micallef has gone one step further, claiming that some people attending the meeting and on the e-mail's recipient list are public servants meddling in party strategy.

On this point, Dr Grima said that all involved appeared to be political appointees with the exception of Mr Azzopardi, who Dr Borg Olivier claims was also sent the e-mail by mistake.

"I will have to vet them one by one. But as far as I am aware, leaving aside Saviour Azzopardi, who according to Paul Borg Olivier received the e-mail by mistake... the others are all secretariat people (political appointees)."

Dr Borg Olivier has staunchly defended himself against Labour's charges, stressing there is nothing illegal in the system his party was trying to put in place.

Moreover, yesterday he sought to turn the tables on Labour and asked the new Data Protection Commissioner to investigate Labour's data-gathering practices.

The man proposed for the job is the permanent secretary in the Social Policy Ministry, Joseph Ebejer, The Sunday Times confirmed yesterday, but it is understood that he still has to accept the offer which was made to him by the Prime Minister two days ago.

In his letter, Dr Borg Olivier points out that a line in Labour's code of ethics for house visits states: "Information regarding families that are not Labourite can be investigated by Labour supporters in the vicinity".

This shows that Labour has in its hands sensitive data which is gathered without the consent of the people it belongs to, in clear breach of the Data Protection Act, Dr Borg Olivier says.

When contacted, the PL general secretary described his counterpart's defence as puerile, because it was based on public party documents from 1998 to 2001, before the Data Protection Act was introduced.

When asked if the party keeps any data in breach of the Act, Mr Micallef said he had no problem with the new Commissioner vetting all of the party's data systems. When pressed if he was confident that the party would pass this test, he said: "I can assure you that all the data we keep is in conformity with what is allowed by the electoral law."