Data Protection Authority
On the Minister of Education and Children's replies to a written question
8th September 2025
In response to the Minister of Education and Children’s Affairs’ answer to a written question from an Icelandic parliamentarian, about the costs of gender equality and gender studies, the Data Protection Authority wants to make the following comments.
The parliamentarian asked the Ministry on its sub-institutions’ annual costs from 2017 for services, advice, policy and education that have been outsourced and relate to gender equality and gender studies and the respondent requested that the answer be broken down by recipients of payments among others.
The Ministry’s reply states that, in view of privacy concerns and where there may be personal or financial issues between individuals, the names of individuals receiving payments are not published but only indicate that there is an individual involved.
However, the Data Protection Authority wishes to draw attention to the fact that Article 9 of the Act on the Protection of Personal Data and the Processing of Personal Data no. 90/2018 states that the processing of personal data is permitted, among other things, if the processing is necessary for work done in the public interest or for the exercise of public authority by the controller.
Therefore do data protection considerations not automatically prevent the disclosure of the information.