Fro top: Ian Drennan, Director of the Office of Corporate Enforcement; Denis O’Brien (right) with former INM chairman Leslie Buckley
This morning.
Computer specialists that monitored the networks of Independent News & Media (INM) without the knowledge of the company’s board were paid by Denis O’Brien, According to claims in an affidavit filed with the High Court by the the state’s corporate watchdog.
The Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement (ODCE) uncovered emails containing a list of names which were to be searched for in the ‘data interrogation’,.
“Persons of interest” were identified on the list and the document refers to “email hits” against current and former journalists, former directors and executives, staff members as well as two senior counsel.
Approximately €60,000 was paid by Blaydon Limited, an Isle of Man company owned by Mr O’Brien, to Trusted Data Solutions (TDS), an American company based in Wales, according to Ian Drennan, Director of the Offcie of Corporate Enforcement.
Former INM chairman and O’Brien associate Leslie Buckley told the ODCE that he gave TDS access to the INM networks as part of a “cost-reduction exercise” so he could “find out more detail about the awarding by INM of a professional services contract”.
But Mr Drennan, in his affidavit, writes:
“During the course of the data interrogation, INM’s data appears to have been interrogated and searched against the names of various individuals, including, amongst others, a number of INM journalists and two senior counsel.”
It is also alleged the data was accessed by at least six companies external to the media group.
Denis O’Brien company is linked to ‘data breach’ at Independent News & Media (Sunday Times)
ODCE claims INM data taken off site and ‘interrogated’ but ‘board did not know’ (Sunday Independent)
Meanwhile….
INM’s Stephen Rae with European Commission President, Jean-Claude Juncker last month
“[I am] clearly concerned by the possibility as set out in an affidavit that journalists’ data may have been accessed.
We have always invoked a strict protection or ‘firewall approach’ to both our journalists’ research and sources to maintain the integrity of our journalism. We will look seriously at this new information to see what data, if any, may have been involved during this reported event in 2014.
At the same time we will continue to provide journalism of the highest standard as we keep our newspaper readers and online audience fully updated.”
INM editor-in-chief Stephen Rae, a member of a group investigating fake news for the European Commission, last night.
Good times.
Pic via Independent
And poo like this is why I wish the GDPR was already live.
…the biggest shock here is not who paid the contractor but that the contractor was paid at all…the Donald didn’t get to where he is by paying pesky contractors…
Well
Maybe
But I’d say that Data and the Info extracted was worth a lot more than 60 grand
And if I were them I’d feel a bit hard done by if not a complete eejit for selling meself short
O’Brien is no friend of trump
His pals are the Clintons that have been so charitable when disaster hit Haiti
They decided that food, water, medical supplies, were not important.
What was mobile phones which they purchased from, good old friend Dennis O’Brien
They also needed accommodation for the relief workers, so they funded a five star Hyatt regency hotel ,but they needed a skilled operator so they chose a suitable operator to hand it to who was guess who.
Denis O’Brien’s fault is he wants respect ,he wants to be a great man a mother Teresa, a great Irish man ,but how he made his money was anything but how Michael O’Leary or Smurfit or the Coulson brothers
He has used every tax dodge and under handed move to make his money every trick in the book ,well if you want to make billions like hat fair play but do not try and get the respect you crave.
He should like all predatory vultures kept his head down .
He has been too smart for his own good and now its all down hill.
Maybe he Reich might order our KAPOs to bring him down
He now officially joins the Michael Lowry set
The funniest part is the bit where Stephen says this: “At the same time we will continue to provide journalism of the highest standard as we keep our newspaper readers and online audience fully updated.”
PMSL
Har. My thoughts exactly – least believable April Fool’s joke ever.
Nice photo of their editor with JC Juncker – good to see the lad isn’t in awe of those with power.
And two tape recorders at the ready so that each of them have a come back on the meeting.
Hard to make your boss look bad
Media mogul O’Brien who has teams of solicitors trawling for negative press
A great story years ago and you can Google the indo
When he sold esat he set up residence in Portugal to avoid tax on the profits
Then he bought a house on raglan road for millions he then ripped out the kitchens and tried to state in his defence when the revenue pounced for tax for the millions he made from the sale, that he could not live in this mansion, it was wait for it uninhabitable ,and for that reason he was not able to reside in Ireland. And of course pay his tax.
The house belonged to the couple who opened up whites on the green who were major goodies.
Major goodies?
Foodies
DOB gone loco..
Ha ha, Aprils fool… except it’s not..
What’s all this for?
Is O’Redacted a bit of a paranoid control freak or wha?
And is this the workings of the USB fairy who according to himself delivered him that USB stick outta nowhere?
As well as being a bully, the man is very unhinged if you ask me.
Gas that redacted goes hung ho about a memory stick, and then this.
https://youtu.be/ogsR7KL1aDU
A Song For Europe – 2019
Anyone know who the two SCs are
Asking for a friend like
I’m assuming that this is illegal behavior, what are the chances it’ll ever be investigated?
About as much chance of Rae or Williams getting penalty points with the current justice system we have.
The Irish populace accept it, that’s why it happens.
Denis “The Haiti “Clinton Foundation” Menace” O’Brien hacking INM and himself out of paranoia that his journalists might actually forget to sell marketing and advertising and end up doing some journalism.
http://www.inm.ie
Look at how creepy the web page is…
– One of the characters seems to be making a hand-job gesture.. why??
http://www.inm.ie/audiences/
A company blatantly advertising you the reader of these rags(not me) as the product… hrdly a mention of the rags and what the point is of reading them in the first place. Just a load of cheap scum nonsense about marketing and advertising.
Why are so many of you reading trash propaganda from another Advertising and marketing wannabe global domination merchant of dog-ploppy-poo that are so obsessed with using words like synergy and full vertical integrated penetration etc.. that they no longer cares who notices how pointless their existence is.
Even if sane people ignore them, there’s still enough of you clowns out there that are still keeping them in business.
The claim by them is millions per day.. Why?… Who are you people?… What the hell is wrong with you?…
A cancer on all our brains….
:-J
+1 They are giving huge numbers away free too (check any hotel reception desk near you) so their ‘readership’ figures are vastly inflated.
IMO the only people who read them are 70+ age group with a smattering of uneducated others thrown in.
thats a nice one. jackson paid 500k legal bill, will prob lose his contract and looks forward to.another suit.
O’Brien has got the Courts to include Declan Ganley as a respondent in the Red Flag litigation proceedings as he alleges that someone or somebody was researching his activities, yet then we have the internal data records of INM subjected to more or less the same intrusion and 60 odd thousand paid out of an offshore entity coffers that is not unconnected with “Redacted” to delve into the data base.
Perhaps that doyen of protecting us from the consequences of “Fake News” will instigate a class
action, as all his friends in Europe will be eager to find out how he handles this one. “Full Stop”