Monthly Archives: July 2007

Safeguards needed for CCTV systems

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Minister for Justice Brian Lenihan today announced more funding for community CCTV schemes. Unfortunately these schemes still fail to comply with basic safeguards recommended by the Law Reform Commission nearly ten years in its 1998 Report on Privacy.

Experience in other jurisdictions have shown that CCTV systems are open to abuse. Voyeurism by CCTV operators is common, with even the occasional politician as a victim. One English case shows what can happen:

Two council CCTV camera operators have been jailed for spying on a naked woman in her own home. Mark Summerton and Kevin Judge, from Sefton Council, Merseyside, trained a street camera into the woman’s flat… The images from the camera, including the woman without her clothes on, were shown on a large plasma screen in the council’s CCTV control room in November 2004, Liverpool Crown Court heard.

Over several hours, she was filmed cuddling her boyfriend before undressing, using the toilet, having a bath and watching television dressed only in a towel.

What safeguards are there in Irish law? There is a Department of Justice Code of Practice for Community-Based CCTV Systems, which has a limited statutory basis in section 38 of the Garda Siochana Act 2005. But that Code of Practice, though fine as far as it goes, lacks teeth. The worst that can happen if a Community CCTV scheme flouts the Code of Practice is that its authorisation to operate the system might be taken away. There is no provision for civil or criminal sanctions against operators who abuse the system, leaving victims potentially without any redress.

The Minister for Justice did acknowledge today that safeguards were necessary against the abuse of CCTV systems. We agree. The current Code of Practice should be put on a full statutory basis, enforceable by civil and criminal sanctions.

Say no to a mobile phone register

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DRI opposes Government proposals to introduce mandatory registration of mobile phones. These proposals will infringe on the privacy of every mobile phone user, as well as being expensive, impracticable and ineffective. But you don’t have to take our word for it. Here’s what the Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources had to say in January:

The idea for a Register of mobile phones was extensively reviewed by officials in the Department. There were many complex legal, technical, data protection and practical issues to be considered. In theory, a Register of mobile phones might seem like a good idea. However, having looked at the situation in other administrations, considered the ease with which an unregistered foreign or stolen SIM card can be used and the difficulties that would be posed in verifying identity in the absence of a national identification card system, and having consulted with the Office of the Attorney General and other interested parties, it was concluded that the proposal would be of limited benefit, in that it would not solve the illegal and inappropriate use of pre-paid mobile phones and was not practical.

As the earlier Communications comments suggest, the current proposals don’t appear to have given any thought to some fundamental issues:

    What’s to stop purchasers giving false details?
    What’s to stop drug dealers from using phones belonging to others?
    What about phones bought before the register comes into effect?
    Stolen phones?
    Foreign SIM cards?

Not to mention the most important question: how can a failed drug policy justify treating the entire population as suspects?

Let the government know what you think of these proposals. You can contact Pat Carey (the responsible junior minister) here and the Minister for Communications Eamon Ryan here.

Welfare Records Leaked to Insurers

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Yesterday’s Sunday Times has details of an investigation by the Data Protection Commissioner into leaking of social welfare details to the insurance industry. The text isn’t available online but an excerpt follows:

Welfare Records Leaked to Insurers

Colin Coyle

Civil servants in the Department of Social and Family Affairs “routinely” leak welfare and employment records to private investigators employed by the insurance industry, an inquiry has concluded.

An audit of one insurance company discovered that it had access to private data that could only have come from confidential social welfare records. An examination of the records of a second insurer reached the same conclusion.

The data protection commissioner, who carried out the investigation, now believes that the practice of obtaining such information has been and continues to be “systematic” across the industry…

The department said that it has taken strong disciplinary action against any staff who misuse customer information, but refuses to say how many employees have been sanctioned to date.

Two years ago the Sunday Times revealed that at least 72 civil servants accessed the social welfare details of Dolores McNamara, the EuroMillions lottery winner. The department’s system logged over 125 hits on McNamara’s files after she scooped a €115m jackpot. Her social welfare details were subsequently published by a newspaper.

The department refuses to say what sanctions, if any, were taken against those found to have snooped into McNamara’s records…

The inquiry by the data protection commissioner is part of a larger probe into the insurance industry, prompted by newspaper reports and direct complaints to its office alleging private data was being leaked to insurance investigators.

This is just one part of a wider problem of staff in public bodies leaking or selling private information. Recent examples include:
Gardaí leaking details of an assault on Michael McDowell’s son;
Gardaí providing case files to the insurance industry;
Social welfare leaks about Dolores McNamara; and
Garda leaks forcing a family to move home

That last case is particularly interesting. Quite apart from the harm caused to the family, the illegal leaks in that case cost the Irish taxpayer €70,000 in damages and at least that amount again in legal fees. Consequently, one might hope that the financial consequences, if nothing else, will concentrate official minds on securing access to private information.

It’s also important to remember the wider problem revealed by those cases. The government has adopted a policy of matching up various databases using the individual’s PPS number as a unique identifier. This applies to areas as disparate as schools, healthcare, taxation and local authorities. This creates new risks of abuse by allowing public officials easily to access information from other public databases, and potentially allowing an individual to be tracked “from cradle to grave”.

Gardaí investigated for selling access to case files

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There appears to be an ongoing problem with a minority of Gardaí abusing their position by selling or leaking confidential information. The most recent episode involves allegations that Gardaí have been illegally supplying information to insurance companies. The Sunday Tribune has an update:

NEARLY 50 serving gardai have been interviewed as part of an internal inquiry into allegations that members of the force supplied confidential information to insurance companies to help them settle road traffic claims quickly.

The Sunday Tribune understands that a garda investigation team headed by Assistant Commissioner Eddie Rock has spoken to officers about the circumstances in which they came to enquire into routine road traffic accidents.

One of the investigation team’s main activities has been to determine if the Pulse crime recording system was improperly used to gather information about individuals. The investigation has been ongoing for 10 weeks and the unit has identified nearly 50 gardai who have used Pulse a significant number of times to look at the history of traffic accidents.

Every time a garda opens a Pulse incident it is electronically recorded, categorised and fully traceable.

It is understood that some gardai have accessed several hundred road incidents on the Pulse system and they are being asked to account for this.

Some gardai, mainly based in regional or divisional traffic units, would have cause to examine accidents, but the reasons why other officers accessed the information is less obvious.

One senior garda source said: “Between 40 and 50 guards have been spoken to so far. Every time you open Pulse it leaves a footprint and is traceable. If I am investigating a minor road accident in Dublin it is obvious that I would be on Pulse looking at the incident.

“If a guard in Carlow opens up the same incident, then there is less of a reason for him to be doing it. This is what this investigation is looking at.

Guys are being asked to explain why they did certain things.

“In most cases there is a simple explanation, but if a fella has opened up a couple of hundred road crashes for no clear reason, that is a different matter and would be hard to explain away.

“I very much doubt if gardai are taking money for doing it . . . it’s more probable that they are helping out their friends who are probably ex-members.

It may well also be the case that these ex-members are working for insurance companies and use the information to help settle claims, ” the source said.

The Data Protection Commissioner is also examining the claims while the Law Society recently released a statement encouraging people who believed that motor insurers used garda and social welfare records to help settle accident claims to contact the authorities.