A data agency called Identita Malta (Identity Malta) has been formed under the Minister for Home Affairs and National Security. The agency was established without any fanfare, an unusual occurrence given the Government’s propensity to find any excuse to seek publicity for even the tiniest improvement in its work.

This has led the Opposition to accuse the Government of trying to sneak in this new development in data access surreptitiously, implying that the new agency’s links with the sprawling Ministry for Home Affairs and National Security may be disguising something more sinister. The Government has strongly denied there had been any attempt at hiding the creation of this agency.

It is indicative of the mistrust which the controversial Minister for Home Affairs and National Security, with his powerful reach into every aspect of national security from the armed forces to the police and the security service, has attracted over the past seven months that this issue has arisen. Is the Opposition right to raise concerns?

The new agency will incorporate all the data currently held by a number of departments, including the public registry, the passport office, the land registry and identity cards under the Citizenship and Expatriate Affairs division. It will bring together all the information currently dispersed under a number of different departments. Records of births, marriages, deaths, passports and travel documents, identity cards, residence permits, citizenship applications and wills, marriage settlements and immovable property records will now be held by one agency.

Should citizens be fearful that such information – already held and accessible – has now been brought together in one place directly under the Ministry for Home Affairs and National Security? The sensible answer would appear to be No. Indeed, it would be paranoid to think otherwise. The information held, though of a very personal nature, is in itself prosaic and already available as part of the necessary business of the State.

While there is no evidence yet that the Opposition’s reservations are justified, there are always grounds for concern when personal information is held together, effectively within the embrace of Malta’s various security agencies.

George Orwell’s 1984, his seminal story of an ever-watchful state ruled by Big Brother, immediately springs to mind. Citizens are right to be concerned at any exposure of their personal data and any potential infringement of their right to privacy.

In a democracy, there has to be a trade-off between privacy and security. The issue raised by the establishment of Identity Malta is whether, in its enthusiasm to improve government access to all these documents, the State has intruded needlessly and unjustifiably into the citizen’s right to privacy.

But, as in other democracies, the key question is: is the level of public scrutiny of the new agency by the Data Protection Commissioner and by Parliament and the courts adequate and are there sufficient rights of redress against the new head of Identity Malta if he transgresses the authority vested in him?

There must be constant vigilance to ensure more efficient bureaucracy does not come at the cost of individual privacy and liberty. It would be a consolation to know that the Data Protection Commissioner is confident that all the mechanisms are in place to safeguard privacy in the new Identity Malta agency and that access to it cannot be abused.