Remote Working Consultation

The Irish Government last month sought responses to its public consultation on Remote Working Guidance.

Impact Privacy has now published its response to the consultation, which closed on 7 August.

We are an advocate for more flexibility in where, and when, employees undertake their work for employers. We believe the economic, business, social, and environmental benefits of flexible and remote working outweigh any associated disadvantages. Consequently, we agreed there is considerable merit in providing comprehensive support and guidance to both employers and employees in the effective move to, and subsequent management of, remote working.

Data protection and privacy should not be a barrier to remote working or used as an excuse to unduly limit its scope. Our view was this means providing data protection guidance that is practical, comprehensive, and easy to follow. It also requires avoiding the conflation of general data protection risks (that are not unique to remote working) with risks that arise mainly in connection with remote working.

Our response reflected this and specifically focussed on data protection and the needs of the SME sector in particular. SME’s make up 99.8% of the total number of enterprises in Ireland, but in the vast majority of cases they do not have the means or resources to respond to regulatory risks (like data protection) in the same way as large enterprises. This means SMEs have a far greater need for reliable, up-to-date, and comprehensive advice from the Government and its agencies to properly, and positively, respond to social initiatives.

If you would like to read our full submission, you can do so here: https://www.impactprivacy.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/2020-07-IRL-Work-from-Home.pdf