Ireland's SiliconRepublic.com, In a State of surveillance:
We are about to enter into a state where every digital step you take is recorded. At the end of March, the Government will introduce the most draconian law in the history of personal privacy in Ireland: 24-hour internet monitoring. A log will be made of everyone's internet activity and every email sent and received.
Greetings from the State of surveillance.
Holy smokes! A government admitting that it is monitoring ever internet transaction in their country? Very brave of them.
What do you think the odds are of the US already doing just that? I would say 99%.
I’m trying to imagine the scale of this operation with respect to servers and personnel, and the sheer bloody cost of the thing.
Thanks for drawing attention to the Irish situation. More details are available in the Irish Times and at Digital Rights Ireland.
Thank you to TJM for the links to the Irish press. Given recent Irish gaffs in losing laptops and the UK government (HMRC) in losing CDs with sensitive personal details on child benefit recipients and more, there is a fundamental issue of how much trust we can have in our governments storing and using information responsibly. According to Ross Anderson, professor of security at Cambridge, the answer is precious little. Aside from outright mistakes and lapses, the actual barriers to attack by hackers are vulnerable. Anderson is advocating that doctors should opt out of using the new NHS online patient records system because of this.
Of course all of this will re-surface when the matter of identity cards comes back on the agenda. Despite research by the LSE which showed that the cost was vastly underestimated, the use of biometric data will not deter “the terrorist”. It will be hackable and therefore forgeries will come onto the market. The former Home Secretary in his newspaper column keeps chiding critics for their childishness in objecting to ID cards. Unfortunately, he never discloses that he sits on the board of a company that is likely to receive contracts for the cards.
Our main protection is the Information Commissioner who is tasked with investigating complaints, errors and omissions on data protection, is woefully under resourced. Indeed, I’ve been waiting almost two years to have my complaint assigned to a case officer. The government claims that they will increase the budget, but I have doubts.
We are observing the rise of the new oppressive state, one that is giving every appearance of being frightened at new forms of unbounded communication. And this includes overseas travel, which is also being complicated and restricted. Or is it the last gasp of the nation state?