The Data Protection Office is investigating the Nationalist Party over a leaflet it sent to some 20,000 people warning them of transfers if Labour is elected.
Data Protection Commissioner Joseph Ebejer confirmed with The Times that his office was investigating the party for a potential breach of the Data Protection Act.
The Nationalist Party has denied acting illegally when it posted the leaflets, at random, to people whose name appeared in the electoral register. The PN insisted that the leaflet was not only sent to government employees as the Labour Party had claimed.
Last week, Labour leader Joseph Muscat called on Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi to “come clean” and admit the PN had access to workers’ personal data.
But a PN spokesman defended the campaign and said that the anonymous leaflets were sent to random addresses from the electoral register and had not targeted Government workers.
The leaflet highlighted what Labour’s spokeswoman on public administration, Helena Dalli, had said regarding an audit exercise a PL government would carry out to rectify injustices in the public sector, adding that workers who were under-qualified would be replaced by those who deserved the post.
She said a Labour government would commission an audit to determine what needed to be done and to flag up public sector mismanagement.
Dr Dalli has filed two libel suits over what she is claiming was a “blatant misinterpretation” of what she had said during the October press conference.
The first libel suit was filed against the Nationalist Party over the leaflets.
Another libel suit was filed yesterday against Finance Minister Tonio Fenech who, she claimed, had attributed something to her which she had not said as he was speaking on the PN’s Radio 101.