Man claims DPC failed to complete investigation into church’s refusal to destroy records

A man has started High Court proceedings over what he claims is the Data Protection Commission’s (DPC’s) failure to complete an investigation of a complaint he made relating to the Catholic Church’s refusal to destroy records it has about him.

Martin Meany has brought judicial review proceedings against the DPC over a complaint he made in May 2018 about the Roman Catholic Church, the court heard.

The court heard that Mr Meany, from Patrick Street in Dublin 8, was baptised a Catholic in 1988.

He says that he is no longer a Catholic.

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In 2018, he wrote to the Roman Catholic Bishop of Ossory asking for all personal data about him, including his baptismal records, to be deleted or destroyed in accordance with the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

He claims the bishop refused to delete or destroy Mr Meany’s personal data and maintained that the church was entitled to possess the records on the grounds that it is of “historical and archival” significance.

Arising out of that refusal, Mr Meany made a complaint to the commission.

He claims the church is in breach of GDPR by continuing to possess incorrect information about him, namely that he is a practising Catholic when he is not.

The church is in further breach of GDPR, he says, by failing to delete or destroy his personal data when requested and has failed to process accurate up-to-date data about him.

He said that in 2019 the commission informed him that the investigation of his and other similar complaints were being paused as it wanted to conduct its own statutory inquiry into the Catholic Church.

This, he was told, was being done to establish whether there was an obligation on that data controller to erase personal data contained in church records when requested.

Mr Meany sought updates on that investigation but responses from the DPC were non-committal and generic in nature, he claims.

He claims he is entitled to have the investigation of his complaint completed within a reasonable time and the four-year delay amounts to a breach of his constitutional right to privacy.

Mr Meany also claims the failure to complete the investigation is a breach of his rights under the European Convention on Human Rights, including his rights to due process and respect for his private life.

Represented by William McLoughlon BL, instructed by Gibson and Associates solicitors, Mr Meany seeks an order compelling the DPC to complete its investigation within a time specified by the High Court.

He also seeks a declaration that the failure to complete the investigation within a reasonable time or at all was unlawful.

The case was briefly mentioned on an ex parte basis (only the plaintiff’s side was represented) before Mr Justice Charles Meenan on Monday.

The judge adjourned the action to a date in December.