The Irish state has a serious problem with using peoples data and it often uses it maliciously. The Irish Data Protection Commissioner is widely regarded as a joke.

Examples include knowingly illegal phone record collection and use in dubious murder cases [0], using medical and school records to pressure parents of disabled children to settle court cases against the state when most vulnerable (and lying about it until caught) and secretly recording all calls to police stations including non-emergency numbers likely to catch whistleblowers [2].

That doesn't include all the private sector scandals, like data breaches that went uninvestigated and unpunished.

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/law/2022/apr/05/mobile-phone-dat...

[1] https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/dossiers-...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garda_phone_recordings_scandal