Notices by Simon McGarr (tupp_ed@mastodon.ie)

@HistoPol While Ireland’s politics can be wince making, we have not yet descended to the level of being in Britain, in their politics.

This interview with the Green Party Housing Minister is quite something.

“It was put to him that reinstating the eviction ban, and keeping people in the accommodation they already have, would help reduce the growing homeless figures.

He responded: “Well then it turns into a communist state, that’s what you are talking about. So we purchase everybody’s property, is it?”

https://www.thejournal.ie/green-party-housing-spokesperson-policy-matters-eviction-ban-6157921-Sep2023/

“But ESB Networks is currently (from beginning of October 2022) rejiggling smart meters so that all the granular half hour data from its customers smart meters is being brought into a centralised database, whether customers consent or not and whether their billing tariff needs it or not (and this is suggested to increase to every fifteen minutes after 2025).

This is new.”

https://www.thegist.ie/the-gist-how-smart-is-your-meter/

“These smart meters were originally set up to store detailed half-hour usage data but only transfer that stuff from the meter to ESB Networks if there was a request from the customer, or some other compelling reason why the data was required. Otherwise, the plan, as set out on the CRU's website, was for ESB Networks to default to getting a report once a day on how much power had been used in that 24 hours.”

https://www.thegist.ie/the-gist-how-smart-is-your-meter/

The Gist: How Smart is Your Meter?

"By and large, people in Ireland like having heating, cooking facilities and hot water in their homes. And, ever since hanging large pots over open hearths burning dried cowpats fell from fashion, they have turned to electricity to meet those needs.

Now ESB gets activity in every home in Ireland, broken down into half-hour increments . The'll know whether the home is occupied and when we enter our homes, and the level of activity"

https://www.thegist.ie/the-gist-how-smart-is-your-meter/

Ethernet wiring homes is difficult and will annoy your family. But did you know you can stick an adapter box on Co-axial cable wires and use them as Ethernet?

I'm quoted here by TechCrunch on Zoom's EU law problems in justifying their claim that they can use personal data gathered from users of their service to train AI models.

https://techcrunch.com/2023/08/08/zoom-data-mining-for-ai-terms-gdpr-eprivacy/

This is devastating.

Blackbird in Dun Laoghaire – a poem by Joseph O’Connor

https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2023/08/09/blackbird-in-dun-laoghaire-a-poem-by-joseph-oconnor/

I feel Meta naming their Twitter replacement after a story of society’s decent into post-apocalyptic savagery is a bit on the nose. #ThreadsApp

The #ThreadsApp can’t launch in the EU because of EU data and consumer protections- which tells you about the level of surveillance bales in- but it has launched in the U.K., which tells you about the U.K.

High Value Tea Towel.

Look, there aren’t a bunch of rules for using Mastodon beyond not being a dose.

But there are a bunch of people who love making rules. This is not a technology thing, just a nature-of-humanity thing. Pay no heed.

However, the one thing I do here different is to write in the descriptions of the pictures for people who can’t see.

Because we don’t need rules to tell us to be sound.

This Tweet deliberately left blank so as not to break the thread.

This also was happening from the Dept of Justice at the same time.

And here is Friday’s front page story from the Irish Times:

https://www.irishtimes.com/crime-law/courts/2023/06/23/mcentee-to-seek-private-hearing-of-court-application-under-law-dealing-with-dwyer-data-challenge-digital-rights-group-claims/

In other news, the Dept of Justice, this very day, has confirmed that complainants will be constrained from discussing anything arising in a DPC complaint if the DPC issues a gagging order deeming it confidential.

Because, you know, all the world has been complaining that the problem with DPC investigations is that they are too transparent.

https://www.irishtimes.com/crime-law/courts/2023/06/26/proposed-law-change-will-not-stop-data-privacy-complainants-speaking-out-department-of-justice/

The Department’s statement spends considerable time denying a bunch of things that are not what anyone says, before finally admitting that the things that people have said it would do (allow the DPC to issue gagging orders of people making complaints) are actually true.

If you are wondering what gives the Minister for Justice the power to apply to the High Court for such a staggeringly broad surveillance regime, well, the answer is that Section 4 of the Communications (Retention of Data) (Amendment) Act [You know, the one that may not actually be in effect because they forgot to put it through TRIS] inserts a whole sequence of steps around such an application.

https://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2022/act/25/enacted/en/print#sec4

So, firstly, it appears that the Minister for Justice has decided to gamble. The stakes here are all future prosecutions of serious crimes which rely on the evidence gathered using this data retention regime.

Nobody is making the Minister and her Dept do this.

These are the stakes they decided they would play with, rather than admit any error.

Nobody made them stick to the last ,2011, law either. They chose to do that in the face of warnings that it might weaken otherwise strong prosecution cases. They refused to change it after case after case in the CJEU confirmed it was illegal. Then they finally lost in the SC in the Dwyer case.

Nobody made the Dept or it’s Ministers do any of that either.

But let us imagine that the 2022 Act that didn’t go through TRIS in time is actually valid.

It has a number of requirements that have to accompany an application of this sort.

1- a “serious and genuine, present or foreseeable threat to the security of the State”