Even more lessons from laptop loss

We’ve written before about laptops going missing containing confidential personal information. Then it was 31,000 Bank of Ireland customers who had to worry whether they could be the victims of fraud. This time it’s 380,000 social welfare recipients whose details might be compromised – with …

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“Do you know where you this time last week? You may not, but the State certainly does.”

Fergal Crehan wrote a short and very clear piece for the Irish Daily Mail last month on data retention. It’s not available online, so here’s the full text: Do you know where you this time last week? You may not, but the State certainly does. …

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Irish Human Rights Commission given permission to appear in DRI action

Good news from the High Court, where Mr. Justice McKechnie has given the Irish Human Rights Commission permission to appear as an amicus curiae in our challenge to data retention laws. From the Commission’s website: “This case raises important issues about the extent to which …

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Liberty v. UK: European Court of Human Rights finds mass surveillance system violates the right to privacy

In the appropriately named Liberty v. The United Kingdom the European Court of Human Rights has held that a system of mass surveillance operated by the UK government to spy on all telephone calls, faxes and emails to and from Ireland was in breach of …

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Avoiding Bluetooth Spam

You might have noticed a story in today’s Irish Independent about the increased use of “mobile marketing via bluetooth”. Paring away the advertising speak, this is simply Bluetooth spam – an unsolicited message sent to your mobile. Email and SMS spam is prohibited by Irish …

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Data retention – the UK experience

We were sold data retention on the promise that it would be used to deal with terrorism and serious crime. Now the government is trying to water down that promise by redefining serious crime to include very minor offences. Recent news from the UK shows …

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Irish Times opinion piece on data retention

The Irish Times published an opinion piece today from us on data retention. A subscription is required to read it at that link, so here’s the full text: Violations only made worse by new plans for data retention The Government is planning an alarming expansion …

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Lessons from Laptop Loss – the Bank of Ireland case and Mandatory Reporting of Data Loss

You might have noticed that 10,000 Bank of Ireland customers have had their personal information put at risk after four bank laptops were stolen between June and October 2007. According to the Independent, the laptops “were being used by staff working for Bank of Ireland’s …

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German Constitutional Court restricts data retention

The German Constitutional Court has, in an interim ruling (German only), restricted the use of data retention pending a full trial to decide on the constitutionality of the law. The German law is being challenged in an action coordinated by the civil rights group Arbeitskreis …

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Transport policy and protecting privacy

The Department of Transport recently launched a public consultation on Sustainable Travel and Transport. Among the options considered in their consultation document are road pricing, tolling and congestion charging. All of these require that some system be put in place to monitor where and when …

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IRMA v. Eircom – Why ISP filtering for the music industry is a bad idea

You might have noticed that the big music firms are suing Eircom, demanding that it put in place a system for monitoring peer to peer filesharing and blocking transfers of their music. We think that this is a bad idea. Here’s why. Intermediaries, not police …

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Implementing data retention – where’s the consultation?

This is a letter which the Department of Justice wrote in July 2006 indicating that they would consult us before drafting any measures implementing the Data Retention Directive. 18 months later we still haven’t heard anything concrete from them, despite reports that they plan to …

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