Data watchdog writes to Sinn Féin over secret database with personal details on millions of voters

The Data Protection Commissioner has written to Sinn Féin over concerns about the personal information of millions of voters potentially being stored on an internal party database.

Following revelations on Independent.ie about a secret Sinn Féin voter database, the Commissioner has written to the party seeking answers to a series of questions about the system.

A spokesperson for the Data Protection Commissioner said: “This afternoon we have contacted Sinn Féin with a series of questions arising from matters arising from media reporting.”

Central to the Commissioner’s questions are concerns over whether Sinn Féin has fully complied with data protection laws in developing a national voter database.

The Commissioner is expected to ask Sinn Féin if they followed all GDPR laws in setting up the Abú system which would include telling people their personal information was being upload to a party database.

Sinn Féin has have said they have complied with all GDPR requirements but have refused to answer questions about how Abú system works and what information is being stored relating to voters.

They are also refusing to say where the servers of the system which could potentially hold the names and addresses of 3.5m voters is being held. The party will only say the servers are in the EU.

Details of Sinn Féin’s Abú system emerged from a tranche of internal documents detailing how the voter database worked.

A manual for Abú describes it as “Sinn Féin’s new online system for voter and canvass management and election analysis” and says it is a “powerful new tool”.

The leaked documents also revealed Sinn Féin representatives are being encouraged to “elicit” information from Facebook users which could be cross-referenced with the Abú system to locate their home addresses.

A 16 digital training presentation said Facebook shows a person's name and "roughly where they live" but Sinn Féin members were then told to get more information from users which could be run through Abú to “pinpoint” their home addresses.

Then they were told to "tag them as a social media engaged and follow up with a canvass on their doorstep".

After days of silence, Sinn Féin issued a statement saying they are in “full compliance with the regulations concerning the use of the electoral register”.

A Sinn Fein spokesperson said: “We can confirm that we have received correspondence from the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner. We look forward to engaging with them.”

The party said the Abú database “is the electoral register” which it said is “made available to political parties and elected representatives for electoral purposes as a part of the democratic process”.

“It should be noted that there is similar commercial software available and that the Houses of the Oireachtas also makes a constituency database - which utilises the electoral register - available to all TDs to assistthem in carrying out their roles,” a spokesperson added.

The electoral register does not denote what party a person has voted for or is likely to vote for. Sinn Féin has not answered questions about why its needs a separate digital register if there is one already in existence.

Meanwhile, Fine Gael Senator John Cummins welcomed the Data Protection Commissioner’s intervention but said Sinn Féin still has more questions to answer.

“Sinn Féin are accustomed to remaining silent on the party’s lack of transparency and finances, but this latest development is something the party cannot remain silent about,” Mr Cummins said.

“The leadership of Sinn Féin must now reveal where this online database is stored and who exactly are the people being asked to elicit more information from social media users? What is their background? Sinn Féin must also answer who developed the database and reveal how the party paid for this system,” he added.

Online Editors