New Data Protection Commissioner confirmed

Senior civil servant Joseph Ebejer has accepted to become the new Data Protection Commissioner, filling an important post that has been vacant for four months.

Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi had asked Mr Ebejer to accept the nomination two weeks ago, after an agreement was reached with Opposition leader Joseph Muscat.

Mr Ebejer, who served as the permanent secretary at the Social Policy Ministry, succeeds Paul Mifsud Cremona, who died in August, aged 65.

Taking on the role at a critical time, Mr Ebejer will not only have to deal with a four-month backlog of work but will also have to conclude two high-profile political cases.

The Nationalist Party and the Labour party have recently lodged complaints against each other following an e-mail slip-up by PN general secretary Paul Borg Olivier.

Mr Borg Olivier sent an e-mail to all government ministers and parliamentary secretaries proposing a new data-sharing mechanism.

However, instead of parliamentary secretary Jason Azzopardi, the e-mail was sent to Labour's general secretary Jason Micallef. The PL then published the e-mail, accusing the PN of spying on the public and blurring the lines between party and government.

The PN denied this, saying it had only proposed to improve its customer care service by ensuring that complaints lodged at the party's headquarters were dealt with on a government level and kept track of accordingly. Dr Borg Olivier also claimed that Labour had broken the Data Protection Act by publishing the letter that was sent by mistake.

Another issue which Mr Ebejer will have to conclude in his first months is the Mitts scandal where 20,000 government e-mail passwords were mysteriously stolen.

The Data Protection Office was set up under legislation in 2000.

Mr Ebejer, who is now 60, joined the public service in June 1965. In July 1999, he was appointed director of policy and planning within the Home Affairs Ministry, where he served on various committees including the committee which drafted the legislation of data protection and privacy, electronic commerce and computer misuse, among others.

He was appointed permanent secretary within the ministry in April 2000. During this time he oversaw the Employment and Industrial Relations Act, the Occupational Health and Safety Authority Act, the Equality between Men and Women Act, the Commissioner for Children Act, and the Voluntary Organisations Act.