The government is tracking and storage phone calls and movements of
people vie mobile phones, there are also plans to record internet
commutations, but few students at BCFE appear to know of the current
and planned data retention by the State.

Only 12 percent of students correctly identified Ireland as the
county that — without court warrant — keeps records of phone calls and
tracks movements vie mobile phones of anybody and everybody.

Students
were asked, “Which of these countries — without warrant — keeps records
of its citizens’ phone calls, tracks movements vie mobile phones, and
is planning to track emails and instant messages?” and given a choice
of four counties: the United States, Ireland, China, and Canada.

Of
the 100 students polled on a range of political issues, a majority — 55
percent — said the United States, 27 percent said China, and 12 percent
correctly answered Ireland. Just three percent said Canada.

The
large percentage which chose the United States is understandable
considering security restrictions put into place since the September 11
attack on New York, while China is well known for censoring media that
its citizens receive. But the survey shows a lack of understanding of
the blanket surveillance over across the Irish population.

Civil rights, and business groups hit out at blanket surveillance

Irish internet service providers and a civil rights group say
planned blanket internet surveillance will be a waste of money and is
unlikely to catch serous criminals, or terrorists. Strict take-up of
the directive here could also harm Ireland Inc.

Data retention
measures currently include the logging and storing of phone calls and
text messages, and location details from mobile phones for up to 18
months, but under an EU directive it is to expand to the inclusion of
emails and other internet commutation for up to two years. As with the
current measure the Garda and the Defence Forces will be able to access
the data without a court order or warrant.

The
Department of Justice told this newspaper that the data retention is
needed to tactical crime and for the security of the State, a spokesman
from the Department said the measures were needed for: “the prevention,
detection, investigation, or prosecution of crime and for the
safeguarding of the security of the State”.

However, the association
of internet service providers in Ireland points out that those wanting
to cover their digital footprints are unlikely to be caught. Internet
Protocol (IP) addresses — a method of identifying internet users — can
be blocked, manipulated, or are often only temporarily assigned on a
’session’ bases.

“The very people that you want to capture in this
know exactly what they need to do to make sure what tracks they leave –
if they leave tracks at all — that those tracks are totally unreadable.
In other words, the people who seriously want to know how to bypass
these methods are the ones who can do so,” said Paul Durrant, general
manager of the Internet Service Providers Association of Ireland. “The
European ISP association has always questioned the true effectiveness
of data retention to tackle serious crime and terrorism for which it
was it was brought in.”

The Department of Justice also claimed data
retention constitutes a responsible and legitimate balancing of privacy
and the need to protect people from crime and terrorism. But that was
described as “nonsense” by Digital Rights Ireland (DRI), a group set up to
protect civil rights in a digital age. 

“A system whereby everyone
– judge, jurist or jailbird alike — has their communications and
movements logged automatically, without any requirement for a warrant
or any prior suspicion, cannot possibly be proportionate,” said TJ
McIntyre, chairman of DRI and a lecturer in Law in UCD. McIntyre
describes the current and expanding retention laws as a creation of
“digital dossiers” of every person in the country.

“This
means that the telecommunications and movements of every person in the
state must be tracked and logged by the telecommunication firms and
kept for three years. Even Orwell didn’t dream of surveillance this
intrusive.”

On the other hand, Durrant says that the move to retain
internet data could be ineffective even when users do not use
techniques to cover their digital trail.

“The directive says to
store the source address and the destination. It’s very simple with
telephony, you’ve got you’re telephone number and my telephone number,
but on the internet that can be totally meaningless. You have the
person residing on your network, but you have no idea who the customer
is at the far end”.

The two groups also repetitively speak of
their concerns that the law will be used in the cases of minor crimes
and for so-called “fishing expeditions”, where wide net is cast for
large amounts of date with the hope of finding significant information.

McIntyre says, “The Data Protection Commissioner has revealed that
there were approximately 10,000 requests for this information last
year. This is not the sign of legislation being used sparingly and
proportionately”.

ISPs will have to foot the bill to log and store
the extra data about their customers’ commutations — it’s information
that would normally fall fowl of data protection and privacy laws as it
is of no use to them in their day-to-day business.

“It has been made
quite clear to us that data retention is not being funded by the
government, it is a business cost to us. ISPs and telecom companies are
commercial organisations and therefore we have to pass this cost on to
the consumer,” explains Durrant.

He warns that Ireland could be
placed at a disadvantage: “It’s a very real threat to Ireland Inc to
the large international ISP-based businesses…. I don’t want to start
being alarmist but it is a reality that the government needs to think
long and carefully about”.

- Cian Ginty

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