Labour leader Ivana Bacik has described revelations about the sale of Irish mobile phone location data as "utterly chilling" and has called on the Government to state whether it has confidence in the Data Protection Commission (DPC).
Speaking after an RTÉ Prime Time investigation found that detailed smartphone movement data is available to purchase from brokers in the digital advertising industry, Ms Bacik said the ability to trace individuals in the data through sensitive locations represented not just a breach of privacy but a threat to national security.
As part of the investigation a Prime Time team went undercover posing as a newly established data analytics firm and obtained a sample of data from a supplier said to contain the precise movements of 64,000 Irish smartphones during a two-week period earlier this year.
The data was analysed and showed how the specific movements of phones in prisons, military bases and other secure or sensitive locations could be isolated and then tracked back to residential addresses.
The data also showed the movement of phones around Leinster House.
"It was chilling watching the investigation," Ms Bacik said.
"I'm looking at that map of Leinster House, and I can see the Labour Party offices there. I can see the cluster of phones in our line of offices there. It's utterly chilling," she said.
"To know that [reporter] Kate and your team were able to track people's movements so that you could, in fact, identify people simply by use of location data, coupled with other publicly available information - utterly chilling."
Read more: Security concern as tens of thousands of phone locations for sale
The Data Protection Commission was criticised by contributors to the Prime Time report, who questioned whether it has done enough to protect smartphone users’ privacy.
Commenting on the DPC’s position, Ms Bacik said "I can't believe they didn't know about this, and I can't believe they haven't taken any action about it."
She noted that the Commission has received more than €160 million in funding over the past eight years.
Earlier, Fine Gael TD Barry Ward called for new legislation to be put in place to protect smartphone users for having their data sold in the way exposed by the Prime Time report.
He said the revelations in the report had left him "shocked and appalled," adding the data "gives you so much information about a person that I think it's actually dangerous."
From the data, Prime Time was able to quickly identify the home addresses and daily routines of specific individuals by examining the tracks of devices which entered certain locations then returned to residential addresses.
One was a person who works in the parliamentary office of Mr Ward.
Ms Bacik said that existing GDPR rules already prohibit the onward sale of personal data, including location data and said that her view is new legislation was not required.
"The definition of personal data in Article 4 of GDPR provides that it relates to not just an identified person, but information relating to a person who is identifiable. That includes location data," she said.
"I'm calling on government to express confidence in the Data Protection Commission and to explain why there hasn't been action until now," she told presenter Fran McNulty, before adding that she now hoped "that we will see action taken so that we won't see the chilling pictures we saw there and that we won't have the threat of our security and our democracy being undermined."
A Prime Time investigation 'Trace Data' by Kate McDonald and Aaron Heffernan was broadcast on Thursday 18 September at 9.35pm on RTÉ One, and RTÉ Player.
