Are government representatives and gardai poring over your private emails and texts without you even knowing?

national | rights, freedoms and repression | other press Thursday May 24, 2012 06:08 by lefty

Our creeping loss of privacy is the subject of an interesting article in todays Irish Examiner. Activists, now more than ever need to get up to speed on how to protect their digital privacy if engaging in activities deemed "troublesome" by state actors. (i.e. actively exercising your democratic rights to free speech etc. Y'know, stuff like that! ;-)

Interesting article on recent digital privacy statistics in the Irish examiner for those of you involved in activism.:

Quote:
"Gardaí, the Defence Forces, and Revenue Commissioners are accessing record levels of private landline, mobile phone, and internet records.

The latest available figures show authorities accessed more than 40 private communications each day in 2010 — compared with 31 per day a year earlier.

In 12 months, almost 15,000 requests were made of telecom companies to hand over details of private citizens’ activity.

This represented a 32% spike in state-authorised spying of electronic communications. And it broke through the high of 14,095 requests made in 2008.

The increase was largely due to a substantial shift in demand for access to people’s internet activities. "

full article here:
http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/invasion-of-privac....html

Also, check out this site if interested in further reading on digital rights in Ireland:
http://www.digitalrights.ie/