The requirement to display the name of a licencee on a forestry site notice for tree felling is to be removed, following the Data Protection Commission upholding a complaint on the matter.
The commission received a complaint from the Association of Irish Forestry Consultants (AIFC), which argued that displaying the names of individual persons (as opposed to private or corporate entities) on site notices was an unwarranted use of personal information.
After considering the complaint, the commission agreed with the AIFC and said it was unclear what purpose the presence of an individual’s name on a site notice served.
It is understood that the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine will revise the site notice to remove the requirement for a person’s name.
Responding to the commission’s decision, the AIFC said today (Monday, August 29) that it originally raised the issue with the department in July 2018, following feedback from farmers and individual forest owners.
According to the forestry consultants group, there was a perception among farmers and forest owners that the requirement to display names on a public notice was “an unnecessary invasion of their privacy and even a potential risk for personal safety, in particular for forest owners living in remote rural areas”.
After receiving legal advice, the AIFC raised the matter with the Minister of state for land use, Pippa Hackett in February 2021, saying that the name requirement was a breach of date protection legislation.
However, Minister Hackett responded by arguing that the requirement was “in line with standard and long-established practice in the planning system”, and said that there were no plans to amend it.
In August 2021, the AIFC made a formal complaint to the Data Protection Commission, contending that there was no statutory basis for the requirement.
In April 2022, the commission advised the department to amend the tree-felling site-notice forms to remove the requirements for a person’s name.
According to the AIFC, the department has, within the last month, agreed to do so.