Data Protection Act 2018 (Rep. of Ireland)

Overview

This Republic of Ireland Act enables the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data by competent authorities for the purposes of the prevention, investigation, detection or prosecution of criminal offences or the execution of criminal penalties, and on the free movement of such data. To achieve such an end, the Act establishes the Data Protection Commission to enforce the provisions of the Act.

The Act also outlines the general principles of data protection, with respect to data controllers and data processors:

• a "controller" being a competent authority that, whether alone or jointly with others, determines the purposes and means of the processing of personal data; and
• a "processor" being an individual who, or a legal person, public authority, agency or other body that, processes personal data on behalf of a controller, but does not include an employee of a controller who processes such data in the course of his or her employment.