Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald has said the party accepts the recommendations from the Data Protection Commissioner (DPC) over their Abú database system.
A report published on Monday by the DPC said the party must tell voters about an internal party database on their canvassing and electioneering material.
The Abú system consists of a database containing personal information of voters obtained from the Registers of Electors.
The DPC report said one of the main data protection concerns that arose related to transparency.
The report said: “The purpose of its use is to record a canvasser’s opinion of an individual’s likelihood to vote for Sinn Féin, with a view to ultimately increasing turnout of voters and convincing voters to support Sinn Féin.”
When asked if she accepted there was a lack of transparency with the Abú system, Ms McDonald said the party will “tighten up” on recommendations made.
Speaking to the Irish Mirror, she said: “I am very glad that the report has been published and of course we accept all of the recommendations and I particularly welcome the fact that the Commissioner has accepted Sinn Fein’s legal basis for using data, they have acknowledged that we have a legal basis and they accept that.
“So our Abú system is fully compliant with the law.
“Where recommendations were made to tighten up data protection, we have worked very closely, I think very constructively with the Data Protection Commissioner and we have implemented those recommendations.”
Ms McDonald said data protection is really important and noted it is “a big challenge for organisations..”
She added: “So we’ll always be working on this to make sure that we are compliant and to keep up with the latest guidelines and so on.”
A report published on Monday by the Data Protection Commissioner says that the Abú database is a “specially designed, bespoke relational database that was designed to identify supporters in order to get out the vote on election day.
“The system contains data from the register of electors and the marked electoral register and is supplemented by canvass information.”
The review by the Data Protection Commissioner came after media reports earlier this year on the alleged use of an internal database by the party for the storage of the personal information of voters.
The DPC said that the party should now “proactively” tell voters that the database exists and that this practice should continue as long as the database continues to exist.
