MaltaToday reported the other day that the secretary general of the Nationalist Party, Paul Borg Olivier, had requested information from government ministers about individuals who sought their help or complained. Senior officials of the party's administrative council defended such request on grounds that it "increased efficiency and customer care". They did not say whether they would object if the same particulars were to be passed on to the Labour Party and, for that matter, to all other political parties in Malta!
Further compounding this extraordinary request, the president of the PN general council said he was "aware of the information-sharing between the government and the party. It's done to facilitate people's queries. It's not a question of the party getting data from the government but of centralising the government's queries so that people get replies to their concerns." Fortunately, a senior officer at the Prime Minister's office, anticipating the potential breach of the Data Protection Act by the PN and ministers, stepped in to remind all ministers that under no circumstances was there to be any sharing of information about individual clients seeking the services of ministers if not covered by the terms of the law.
In all cases, the person concerned should be notified in advance that such information was to be divulged and must formally agree to this. Such consent should be in writing. The transfer of data to third parties without consent is a criminal offence. Moreover, political parties are not exempt from this or any other provisions of the law.
What is so disquieting about this incident is not so much the "scandalous and shameful" channelling of confidential information from government to party, as the Leader of the Opposition put it, but the assumption within the highest reaches of the PN hierarchy that such a request was not untoward.
One can allow for the inexperience of the party's secretary general, even though he happens to be a lawyer by profession and so should have known better. One also must laud the prompt action taken by the head of the Prime Minister's secretariat to stop any information being given out. But why did the Prime Minister decline to answer when asked by The Times whether he intended publishing the correspondence relating to Dr Borg Olivier's e-mail?
Such attitude risks giving the impression that what has happened is somehow of little consequence to him. It may also lead to some jumping to the conclusion that such requests are not unusual.
Of course, there is no need pointing out that protecting personal privacy in the information age is of vital importance to individual freedom. Its abuse is a slippery slope which anybody who loves democracy threads at his peril.
Every citizen should feel confident that when personal details are given to an organisation they have a duty to keep those details private and safe. No government has a right to share information with any political party about its citizens for whatever reason, more so if that is aimed at gaining political mileage.
The Prime Minister should acknowledge the seriousness of this incident by either making a statement about what he knows and the steps he is taking to ensure there is no recurrence or, preferably, immediately ordering an inquiry into what has happened. The fact that a new Commissioner for Data Protection has still not been appointed should be no bar to this because other remedies for holding inquiries are available.