AN EU deal to allow the transfer to Israel of sensitive personal data on European citizens is set to go ahead after Irish attempts to block the initiative ran aground.
Angry at the use of fake Irish passports by the alleged Israeli assassins of a senior Hamas operative, Dublin tried to block moves to declare that the EU recognises Israeli data protection standards as being sufficient to allow member states to transfer personal data there.
At a meeting of an EU committee late last month, an official acting for Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern voted against such a declaration being made but Ireland was the only country to do so.
This was the Government’s second public act against Israel as a result of the affair. It has also expelled an official from the Israeli embassy in Dublin.
The EU committee gave no opinion on the matter, in effect giving Israel the go-ahead. Because some member states were not represented at the meeting, there was no qualified majority in favour of the proposal. The European Commission adopts such decisions and is expected to do so in the coming weeks.
However, the Government has said the EU accepted Ireland’s demand for information manually processed by Israel to be monitored in the new arrangements. This usually concerns passport information recorded manually or photocopied at border points.
Although Israel still resists such monitoring, Ireland argued that EU and Israeli data protection officials want manual records included in Israel’s data protection legislation.
“We were not satisfied and are still not satisfied that Israel meets the necessary criteria. We pushed it to a vote but were the only country to oppose the go-ahead,” said a spokesman for Mr Ahern.
“It is now effectively a done deal, although we take some comfort from the fact that we were able to build into the process the monitoring requirement or an oversight mechanism.
“We raised the vitally important issue that the manual keeping of data by Israel is not subject to their data protection laws despite the fact that both EU data protection commissioners and their own data protection commissioner have demanded it be included.
“Obviously Minister Ahern is aware of Israel’s role in the shooting dead of an individual in Abu Dhabi earlier this year and the blatant use of Irish passports by agents acting on behalf of Israel in that killing. If other member states of the EU want to disregard that it is up to them. Ireland will not.”