Tag Archives: data

Graham Dwyer leaving Dun Laoghaire Courthouse after being charged with the murder of Elaine O’Hara in 2013

This morning.

Via RTÉ News:

Europe’s top court confirmed this morning that Ireland’s system of retaining and accessing mobile phone metadata breaches EU law.

Such data was a key part of the prosecution’s case against Graham Dwyer, who was convicted in 2015 of the murder of Elaine O’Hara in August 2012

The court also outlined the circumstances in which the targeted retention of such data is permitted under EU law.

It confirmed that EU law precluded national legislation that provided for the general and indiscriminate retention of mobile phone metadata.

It said it had already held that the objective of combating serious crime, as fundamental as it may be, did not justify this.

Meanwhile…

The case will now go back to the Supreme Court, which is likely to rule in his favour.

But his appeal will be determined by the Court of Appeal which will hear arguments about the admissibility of this evidence at his trial.

There is also a previous Supreme Court judgment which allows evidence to be admitted, even if a person’s rights are breached, as long as that breach was inadvertent or in good faith.

Ireland’s retention of Dwyer phone data breaches EU law (RTE)

RollingNews

Yale University study to test “how persuasive messaging affects COVID-19 vaccine uptake intentions

Ever felt manipulated?

Read on.

Via The Naked Emperor’s newsletter:

You may have naively believed that the fear, pressure and psychological toll of the pandemic caused your friends, family or colleagues to act in an unrecognisable way but it was all carefully planned.

They conducted a study (and I’m sure this wasn’t the only one) to see which pressure points would work best on different parts of the population and then carefully released mountains of propaganda (funded by you) to turn your friends and family against you. This nudging was all done to get you to take a vaccine you decided you didn’t want.

The ethics statement in the study says the experiments conducted were fielded under an exemption granted by the University. It’s not difficult to understand why.

Whether mass vaccination was the only way out of the pandemic or not, behaviourally nudging citizens to guilt each other into taking a novel treatment was not the way a civilised society should have acted.

They wanted you to get angry in order to get vaccinated but they failed. But they wanted you to get angry, so get angry. Get angry that the population was psychologically manipulated to turn on one another. Get angry that your friends and family were nudged into parroting the phrases used in the study to make you feel guilty, stupid or embarrassed.

Get angry that you were socially ostracised and de-invited from events. Get angry that your colleagues made you lose your job.

And if you were one of those who tried to convince someone to get vaccinated, get angry that you were so easily manipulated.

Fight!

Why Anger towards the Unvaccinated was Intentional Psychological Manipulation (The Naked Emperor’s newsletter)

Meanwhile…

…via Steve Kirsch:

If they truly wanted to end vaccine hesitancy, all they have to do is require autopsies if you die within 60 days of vaccination and require the medical examiners to make the required tests to determine vaccine involvement (as doctors Bhakdi and Burkhardt have done) and publish them. Publishing a fraudulent report would be a criminal offence.

This would end the debate.

Or they could simply require all licensed embalmers to check for the telltale clots and make the numbers public. Again, it would be a crime to falsify reports.

Or they could do both.

Why don’t they do this?

I’ll tell you why they don’t do it: They don’t do it because they know the results would be devastating and would immediately halt the vaccine and discredit the FDA, CDC, the entire medical establishment, virtually all members of Congress, and the mainstream media.

Why doesn’t Florida Governor DeSantis require this in Florida? What is he afraid of? Why doesn’t Governor Newsom require this in California? What does he have to fear? DeSantis would be the most likely of any governor to do this. He could be a world hero if he did this.
Nobody wants transparency of the data. They all want to keep you in the dark.

My suggestion isn’t limited to the US. Any public health official anywhere in the world could order this…

Anyone?

A simple way to end vaccine misinformation immediately (Steve Kirsch)

Public Health Scotland say covid data is being misused deliberately by anti-vaccination campaigners

This afternoon.

Via Glasgow Times:

Public Health Scotland will stop publishing data on covid deaths and hospitalisations by vaccination status – over concerns it is misrepresented by anti-vaxx campaigners.

The public health watchdog announced the change in policy in its most recent covid statistical report, saying the frequency and content of the data would be reviewed.

Instead, officials will focus on publishing more robust and complex vaccine effectiveness data.

PHS officials said significant concerns about the data being misused deliberately by anti-vaccination campaigners is behind the move.

Covid data will not be published over concerns it’s misrepresented by anti-vaxxers (Glasgow Times)

Coronavirus (COVID-19): daily data for Scotland (Public Health Scotland)

July 2020

Yesterday

This afternoon.

Politics Watch writes:

It’s day 494 of the longest lockdown in the world & Govt admits they now need “better data” on who is actually sick It’s disturbing confirmation that the decisions of Govt were taken in the absence of the facts & incomplete data.

Tánaiste predicts up to 4,000 Covid-19 cases a day in next few weeks (Irish Examiner)

Last week:  Quietly Into The Night

From top: Johnny Ryan, Of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties; Helen Dixon, Ireland’s Data Protection Commissioner: A video explaining Real-Time Bidding (RTB)  and ‘the biggest data breach in history’

This morning.

Google and several data brokers are violating the EU’s privacy rules by harvesting people’s personal information to build highly detailed online profiles including some firms’ collection of information on sexual orientation, health status and religious beliefs, according to a report published today.

Via PIltico.eu

The accusations — from Johnny Ryan, a senior fellow at the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, an NGO — come 18 months after Ireland’s privacy regulator began a probe into how Google collects and shares people’s online information for its advertising business.

Several other European data protection authorities subsequently received separate complaints into so-called real-time bidding (RTB), a system by which advertisers use data to target people with paid-for messages when they surf the web.

Ryan said the real-time bidding system, which broadcasted web users’ online behavior and habits to multiple advertising companies and data brokers, infringed on the region’s privacy rules that required data to be kept secure and used proportionately.

The [Irish Data Protection] Commission has failed to stop that ongoing biggest data breach in history and as a consequence people across Europe and in Ireland are exposed to intimate profiling including of health conditions and political views and location over time, because the RTB system leaks that data into the data broker market,” he told POLITICO.

Google and data brokers accused of illegally collecting people’s data: report (Politico.eu)

Meanwhile

From top (from left):  former chairman of INM Leslie Buckley; INM’s largest shareholder Denis O’Brien; IT expert Derek Mizak; former INM CEO Robert Pitt

There were  a number of developments in the INM data breach story over the weekend.

Earlier this year, the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement (ODCE) asked the High Court to appoint inspectors to investigate Independent News and Media (INM), the largest shareholder of which is Denis O’Brien, following protected disclosures made to it by former Group CEO of INM Robert Pitt and former Group CFO Ryan Preston.

This was granted by Mr Justice Peter Kelly in the High Court in September with Justice Kelly appointing Richard Fleck and Seán Gillane to investigate the claims.

An affidavit filed by ODCE director Ian Drennan claimed data involving 19 listed people was removed from the company’s premises in October 2014, taken out of the jurisdiction and “interrogated” by at least six companies external to INM.

IT expert and director of the information security and digital forensics firm DMZ IT Derek Mizak was allegedly involved in this interrogation, along with Trusted Data Solutions (TDS), an American company based in Wales.

The list included Jerry Healy SC and Jacqueline O’Brien SC (both of whom acted as counsel for the Moriarty Tribunal) as well as former INM board members and employees Karl Brophy, Mandy Scott, Vincent Crowley, Donal Buggy, Joe Webb and James Osborne; journalists Sam Smyth, Maeve Sheehan, Brendan O’Connor; and public relations executive Rory Godson.

Approximately €60,000 was paid by Blaydon Limited, an Isle of Man company owned by Denis O’Brien, to Trusted Data Solutions, according to Ian Drennan, the Director of the Office of Corporate Enforcement, in relation to this alleged interrogation.

Separately, the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner (ODPC) also announced earlier this year that it would also investigate the alleged data breach at INM.

Yesterday, in the Sunday Business Post, Tom Lyons reported that the ODPC will now widen its investigation into INM to include matters beyond the timespan of the alleged breach.

Mr Lyons reported the ODPC will specifically look at why, in 2015, hard drives of up to six editors in INM were allegedly taken by INM in the middle of the night and copied before being returned to the journalists’ desks before they got into work – while using software to hide the fact data had been copied.

Mr Mizak was also involved in this alleged action.

Mr Lyons reported:

“The decision to search the six computers was requested by INM’s then chief executive Robert Pitt, who was trying to identify who had leaked a memo that his personal assistant had sent to editors. The memo ended up being reprinted verbatim in the Phoenix magazine.

Pitt is understood to have asked that all data be kept on site in INM, and that only the memo be looked for. However, Derek Mizak, a computer expert who carried out the operation with the aid of INM’s own IT team, gives a different version of events. He describes various interactions with Pitt, which INM’s former chief executive is believed not to recall.

Mr Lyons added:

“Pitt is one of two whistleblowers relied on by the ODCE when it successfully argued that High Court inspectors should be appointed to INM. Why the 2015 incident has not emerged in any affidavit to date is unclear.”

In addition, back in 2013, (before Pitt was INM’s CEO) INM’s then chairman Leslie Buckley asked Mizak for a report on emails that were allegedly being sent by a number of INM members – including former head of corporate affairs at INM Karl Brophy and former CEO of INM Gavin O’Reilly – to their private email addresses.

Mr Lyons noted:

“There is no suggestion of wrongdoing in anyone forwarding INM emails to their private addresses, and the media group never took any action as a result.”

Of this work allegedly carried out by Mr Mizak, Mr Lyons reported:

“INM did not ask for an invoice from DMZ. Neither did DMZ bill the listed media company. No written instruction setting out what work DMZ was to do was ever produced. Notes were taken, but these were destroyed afterwards by DMZ as was its practice when jobs concluded.”

Mr Lyons reported that INM declined to respond to questions as to why “it had not told the High Court so far about all of its interactions with Mizak”.

He also reported:

“INM is on notice from a number of parties who wish to find out what happened to their data, including Brophy, [Joe] Webb, Gavin O’Reilly and the journalist Sam Smyth.

“A number of former staff, including various journalists, have also written to the company to try and find out if their data was looked at. Much remains to unravel as the ever more disturbing investigation rumbles on.”

Chateau intrigue: Inside the INM data saga (Tom Lyons, Sunday Business Post)

Investigation into INM data deepens amid fresh privacy concerns (Tom Lyons, Sunday Business Post)

Previously: Look Hack In Anger

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