Politics & Culture

Symphisiotomy, Redress, and the DPC

Over on the company site I’ve written a piece on Data Retention policies that references the Symphisiotomy redress scheme as a case study in data retention planning (not in a good way). For those who didn’t spot it yesterday and who are glued to the national media that isn’t referencing this huge story, let me …

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Stand up for Digital Rights, Ireland.

In the Western world our rights are under attack. In the UK for example the policy of the Tory party is to abolish the Human Rights Act (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-21726612). In the fast changing world of data and information private companies and governments alike go to great lengths to peer inside our digital lives in a manner …

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Buying back the mortgaged off

Today’s Irish Times has a ‘news’ story about a man who, during the boom, sold his home and land for €3million and has just bought it back for €215,000. Fair play to him. He sold a property and home he loved and made a profit. Now he can have his cake and eat it, returning …

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An Op-Ed about Data Protection

Fergal Crehan and I drafted the original version of this op-ed piece on the evening of the 5th of June, completing it on the 6th and submitting it immediately to the Irish Times as a topical opinion piece. The article was originally drafted in response to the EU Council of Ministers publication of proposed amendments …

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Trust us. We’re the Government

Coverage of some of the structures of the Insolvency Service of Ireland has been rattling through my ears while I work the past few days. What I’ve heard gives rise to an unsettling feeling that the architects of the scheme have decided that the insolvent are a form of unter-mensch for whom some of the …

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Heel Pricks. A short thought

Yes. It is a pity that Guthrie cards will be destroyed. Yes, there is potentially valuable data held on them. But there is also a fundamental right to Personal Data Privacy under EU Treaties and there is that pesky thing called the Data Protection Acts/Data Protection Directive. The DPC investigated the issue of heel prick …

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Some food for thought

The Official Twitter Account of the Irish EU Presidency (@eu2013ie) tweeted earlier today about recipes. That gave me a little food for thought given the subject matter I posted on yesterday. Ireland will hold the Presidency of the EU in the first half of 2013. Part of what we will be tasked with is guiding …

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Calling The Tweet Police

[updated 2012-12-27@17:11 to reflect comments from TJ McIntyre] [edited introductory paragraphs at 20:34 2012-12-27 reflecting feedback from Aoife below, fair comment made and responded to] [Note: This has been posted today because RTE are doing a thing about “social media regulation” which means that levers are being pulled that need to be red flagged] I …

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The Anti-Choice Robodialler–some thoughts

The Intro Robodialling, autodialling, power dialling. Call it what you will. It is the use of computers and computer telephony integration to save the tired fingers of call centre workers and turn the job into a battery farm of talk… pause.. talk. I know. I’ve worked with them. Heck, I designed the backend data management …

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