The Labour Party said this evening that had it not last year revealed a 'web of spying' which was being coordinated by the General Secretary of the Nationalist Party, there would, in the words of the Data Protection Commissioner, have been 'serious consequences' on the right to privacy of people whose personal information would have been revealed.
The Nationalist Party earlier in the day said in a statement said the Data Protection Commissioner had dismissed a case filed by PL leader Joseph Muscat and found there had been no violation of data protection in an e-mail by PN General Secretary Paul Borg Olivier on customer care of people who complained about government services.
But the Labour Party in a preliminary reaction, while noting that it had not been formally notified of the commissioner’s decision, further noted that the Commissioner had said that the request made by the PN General Secretary for the transmission to a central source in the Office of the Prime Minister, of personal information on individuals who complained to ministries or parliamentary secretariats, would, without safeguard to legal provisions, not have conformed to the Data Protection Act.
The commissioner further stated that: “For these reasons, the General Secretary of the Nationalist Party is being warned that his request, had it been implemented, would have had serious consequences on the right to privacy of the individuals about whom personal information would have been issued.”
The PL said it had tried to contact the Commissioner, who is abroad, and would issue a fuller reaction in due course.
Dr Muscat had filed his case with the Data Protection Office on December 4 last year.
He had said that Dr Borg Olivier had written to ministries asking them to forward details on the persons submitting requests and complaints to the government. The e-mail was also mistakenly sent to then PL General Secretary Jason Micallef.
Dr Borg Olivier had at the time denied that any personal information was being revealed or that there was spying on the people.