Tag: data protection

  • Our Dependent Data Protection Commissioner

    Our Dependent Data Protection Commissioner

    An edited version of this article appeared in Village magazine, June 2016 edition A complaint to the European Commission about the lack of independence of the Irish data protection commissioner could cost the State thousands of euros in daily fines if upheld. POD, the Primary Online Database, wasn’t supposed to be a problem for the…

  • A brief history of the Irish surveillance state

    A brief history of the Irish surveillance state

    An edited version of this article appeared in Village magazine, February 2016 edition Twenty years ago, Letterykenny gardai sent a request to Garda HQ looking for selected phone records in the county. The request, part of the deeply flawed Donegal garda inquiry following the death of cattle dealer Ritchie Barron, which following complaints for the…

  • GUBU 2.0: Could it happen again?

    GUBU in 2015: Phone tapping never went away An edited version of this article appeared in Village magazine, February 2015 edition Late last year, the Irish Times reported exclusively on secret courts set up by justice minister Frances Fitzgerald to regulate requests for Irish data from GCHQ. The courts were set up after files released…

  • Data Journalism: Preparing for the next war

    Data Journalism: Preparing for the next war

    An edited version of this article appeared in Village magazine, November 2014 edition “Getting it right next time” was the theme of the 15th Cleraun media conference, as academics and journalists jousted over what went wrong during the Celtic Tiger era, whether the media could have done more to warn about the dangers of the…