Reform needed to deal with 'multiplicity' of appeals in data protection cases, court says

• Published date: 25 April 2024
• Publication title: Irish Times: Web Edition Articles (Dublin, Ireland)

The court made the comments when dismissing the third appeal brought by former National Gallery of Ireland (NGI) attendant David Fox over part of a decision of the DPC rejecting his complaints in relation to access to his data held by his then employer

Mr Fox worked for the NGI for 20 years before his employment was terminated in November 2011.

In 2014, Mr Fox was awarded €25,000 by an Employment Appeals Tribunal for unfair dismissal. The tribunal found the NGI was defective in the procedures used or adopted to terminate his employment.

It found compensation was the appropriate remedy because it considered that he himself "contributed significantly to his dismissal".

The tribunal had heard the dismissal arose after NGI decided Mr Fox compromised the security of the national collection by a gross breach of protocols and a lack of common sense.

The NGI said he had done so by aiding a former colleague, working for an outside agency, in preparing a submission for the Rights Commissioner service. The preparation was done by internal email and, NGI claimed, disclosed sensitive security information.

Mr Fox, who was an active trade union representative, said he was asked by the former colleague, who worked on night security and had been dismissed due to an incident at the NGI, for assistance in preparing for a submission to the Rights Commissioner.

Mr Fox said the former colleague's submission was atrocious and needed to be corrected and tidied up but he did not accept that there was any breach of security or that the emails contained any sensitive information.

Before his own dismissal, Mr Fox had submitted a data request on his personal information to NGI. He was not happy with the response and made a complaint to the DPC.

By 2016 that complaint was reformulated and in 2019 the DPC found in his favour on a number of points but was against him on others.

He brought a Circuit Court appeal in relation to the findings not in his favour.

These included that, in circumstances where the NGI was faced with the theft of property from a secure storeroom and this theft raised further security...