The Opposition is casting fresh doubts on the legal notice allowing the Education Minister to access student details for research purposes, arguing that the final text had not been cleared by the Data Protection Commissioner.

The right approach, Shadow Minister for Education Joe Cassar said, should have been to present subsidiary legislation under the Data Protection Act to ensure that all privacy issues were being addressed.

The PN yesterday filed a parliamentary motion to repeal the law, which will be debated on Monday. Last night it was agreed that the legal notice will not come into effect in the meantime.

On Sunday the Education Ministry rejected a claim made by PN leader Simon Busuttil that the government was trying to snoop on students. The legal notice had the approval of the Data Protection Commissioner before publication, the ministry said.

Joseph Ebejer, who has since left the post of commissioner, confirmed he had been consulted by the government to ensure the new law was in line with the Data Protection Act, giving to understand that it had been published with his consent.

Contacted again yesterday, Mr Ebejer clarified that he had not actually seen the final text of the legal notice, although he admitted that such a practice was not the norm.

He said his advice at the time was that the request for information should be backed by a legislative instrument.

“The government appears to have taken up that suggestion,” said Mr Ebejer.

Asked whether the government had failed to give him the entire picture when seeking his advice, he said this was not the case.

Earlier Education Minister Evarist Bartolo said the government was keen to meet the Opposition and the University Students’ Council – which had raised questions over privacy – to discuss their “real” concerns.

He said the law had to be amended as the proviso in the Education Act of 2006, which empowered education directorates to ask for students’ personal information, did not cover educational research focusing on the transition between the end of obligatory education, higher education and work.

The Opposition motion questions the necessity of providing the students’ ID numbers, saying that such information was irrelevant for statistical purposes.

The former data commissioner said such identification may only be needed in the initial stages of research to ensure there were no repeated entries of people with the same name.

From then on any reference which might reveal the identity of the individuals had to be removed, he said.

The Opposition is also arguing that there is no need for such a law, in view of Article 27 of the Employment and Training Services Act.

The motion also questions the reason for which the information is being requested by the minister himself rather than by a government entity.

PN MEP Roberta Metsola hit out at the government saying the law had a “staggering” potential for abuse.

“When you consider that the European Parliament has only recently voted on sweeping new data protection regulations and privacy rules, this law is of huge concern,” she said.

Lawyer’s concerns

Data protection lawyer Antonio Ghio is expressing deep reservations about the new legal notice, arguing that even though its intention may be laudable, this was not the way to legislate when implementing schemes like Jobs+.

In a detailed opinion posted on the website ICT law Malta, Dr Ghio says that the powers granted to the minister under this law were disproportionate and could lead to perceived risks of privacy infringement.

Dr Ghio also questions whether the law was drafted in the correct manner, saying that in its present format it placed no obligation for data requests to be linked with research.

He questions whether the law satisfies the tests listed in Article 9 of the Data Protection Act, and says it fails to distinguish between “personal data” and “sensitive personal data”.

The law, he says, empowers the minister to collect all data including the health or sickness history of a student and he questions whether the minister is aware of the legal obligation to inform parents whenever details of their children are being requested.

Dr Ghio suggests amending Article 68 of the Education Act and Article 27 of the Employment and Training Services Act to make them more in line with the objectives of the Jobs+ initiative.