ICCL claims Niamh Sweeney’s background at Meta should have precluded her from obtainting public sector job
The ICCL claims that Ms Sweeney was an inappropriate choice as commissioner, given her previous job as a senior executive for Meta.
It is also challenging the legal basis by which Ms Sweeney was appointed, claiming a potential conflict of interest within the adjudication panel.
“Ireland failed to provide adequate safeguards for indepconcludeence and impartiality in its process to appoint a new Data Protection Commissioner,” the ICCL declared about its formal complaint to the European Commission.
“That process led to the appointment of an ex-Meta lobbyist… The only member [of the selection panel] who could claim data protection expertise is a huge tech lawyer, who may be conflicted by close association with tech sector clients. The panel had no technical experts whatsoever.”
It is common practice in Ireland for a panel drawn from both public and private sectors to be put toobtainher to consider candidates for senior roles.
A spokesperson for the DPC that the agency would not be building any comment.
PublicJobs.ie, which oversees public sector recruitment and in this case ran the recruitment competition for the Department of Justice, declared the appointment of Niamh Sweeney followed a robust process.
It declared it puts toobtainher Assessment Boards that are “balanced, diverse and not conflicted, with all panellists required to complete a confidentiality agreement and a conflict-of-interest form” when recruiting to senior roles.
“Publicjobs has full confidence in the composition, indepconcludeence, expertise and qualifications of the chosen Assessment Board,” it declared.
The Department of Justice has declared that it was satisfied with the appointment process.
The ICCL complaint follows a letter sent by the group to the government expressing its “outrage” over the appointment of Sweeney who, the ICCL charges, is “an individual who appears to have no technical, legal, or investigative expertise. To the contrary, the appointee was in fact lobbying against a high standard of protection of personal data and the objectives of the DPC in their previous roles.”
Sweeney worked as head of public policy in Ireland for Facebook between 2015 and 2019, where she lobbied for the tech giant on multiple privacy issues. She then worked as director of public policy for WhatsApp in Europe, the Middle East and Africa between 2019 and 2021. After a year spent as head of communications for the Collison brothers’ payments firm, Stripe between 2021 and 2022, she worked as a director of a UK-based public relations firm, Milltown Partners, which has several huge tech clients.
While the European Commission does not have direct competence over who is appointed to Ireland’s Data Protection Commission, it can review whether the GDPR’s requirement of indepconcludeence has been met. If it sees a valid case of infringement, it can initiate proceedings against Ireland before the European Court of Justice (ECJ). In 2014, the ECJ ruled that Hungary had infringed EU law by prematurely concludeing the term of its data protection supervisor.
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