Waste services company Greyhound has said the transfer of information on 140,000 from Dublin City Council customers as part of a takeover of the bin-collection service "adhered strenuously" to legislation.
The Data Protection Commissioner is to investigate the transfer after a number of complaints were received from householders affected by the changeover on January 16th.
The company said today its customer database was separate to the database of customers owing unpaid debts to the council.
“The two databases will not be matched and the matter of collecting unpaid debt from customers on behalf of Dublin City Council will be treated separately.”
In a statement, Greyhound said it would “co-operate fully with any investigation conducted by the Office of the Data Protection Commission where it is formally notified of any request to do so”.
It said any customer who signed up to its service would have their bin collected, “even if they are listed on the database relating to customers who owe unpaid debts to Dublin City Council”.
Customers who choose to sign up must do so by February 16th and must also ensure that their account is in credit to meet the respective cost of each bin collection after that date, Greyhound said.
“The process of transferring the customer database from Dublin City Council to Greyhound Recycling and Recovery has adhered strenuously to the legislation set out in respect of data protection,” the company added.
It said it was “fully compliant” with data protection legislation and would continue to uphold that standard.
Dublin City Council has said “adherence to the obligations of the relevant data-protection legislation was assiduously observed” in the transfer of the business to Greyhound.
Other waste service companies have said they have had thousands of requests from former council customers seeking a service.
Residents continued to report this week that their bins had not been collected since the changeover from the city council collection.
Greyhound has said no collections have been missed but said some customers were having difficulty adjusting to a new collection day.