Category: Privacy

Two Digital Developments Today

| 2 Comments
| Copyright, Digital Rights, Privacy

Creative Commons support button, via their siteEagle eyed readers of this blog (well, there are two readers – hi, mum and dad – and at least one of you must be wearing your glasses as you read this) will have spotted the CC button at the bottom of the right tool bar, and its accompanying text, that “This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License”.

The Creative Commons organisation helps webauthors to make their works freely available to be shared and reused, either by helping them put the works into the public domain or by retaining copyright whilst while licensing the work as free for certain uses, on certain conditions. …

Read More »

Handing over customer records as protected speech?

| No Comments
| Digital Rights, Freedom of Expression, Media and Communications, Privacy

verizon logo, via the verizon siteOn the day I learn (hat tip Media Law Prof Blog) that US not-for-profit NGO Freedom House has released its annual global Freedom of the Press Survey for 2007 (Ireland fares reasonably well – equal thirteenth in Europe, equal sixteenth worldwide – but we could do better), I also learn (hat tip madisonian.net) that Verizon have made an extraordinarily tendentious free speech argument in favour of disclosing customer records to the US security services. …

Read More »

A footnote to Election 2007

| 10 Comments
| Defamation, Election 2007, Politics, Press Council, Privacy

picture-1.pngNow that An Taoiseach (the Prime Minister) has put us out of our misery and finally called the long-awaited general election, all Bills currently pending will fall with the outgoing Dáil (Lower House). Of those of particular interest to this blog, this means that the Defamation Bill, 2006 (Department of Justice | Oireachtas (pdf)) and the Privacy Bill, 2006 (Department of Justice | Oireachtas (pdf)) now both fall too, and their fate will have to await the pleasure of the incoming government in the next Dáil.

The fate of the Defamation Bill, in particular, raises an interesting question for the press industry. The Bill provided for the recognition of a Press Council; the press industry has advanced with the establishment of an Office of the Press Ombudsman and the Press Council of Ireland in parallel with the passage of the Bill through the Houses of the Oireachtas (Parliament); and they will now have to decide whether to continue with this process now that the Bill has fallen. They could of course keep their powder dry until after the election, in the hope that the incoming government revives the Bill, and then press on with the formation of the Ombudsman and Council.…

Read More »

What price privacy when cctv is about?

| 3 Comments
| Digital Rights, Irish Law, Irish Society, Media and Communications, Privacy

venicebanner.jpg

Dearbhail McDonald (Legal Affairs Correspondent of the Irish Independent) has brought my attention to a press release issued yesterday by the European Commission for Democracy Through Law (the ‘Venice Commission‘, an organ of the Council of Europe) about its recent Opinion on Video Surveillance in Public Places by Public Authorities and the Protection of Human Rights. …

Read More »

Café Bars and the Privacy Bill

| 5 Comments
| Irish Law, Irish Society, Politics, Privacy

Q: What do these two things have in common?
A: They’re both in the news today for the same reason.

Two short quotes. The first one is from the list of motions for the Progressive Democrats‘ national conference today:

Motion 19
Conference calls for a review of the proposed privacy legislation in the Party’s General Election Manifesto in particular to avoid the dangers of muzzling the press through court injunction.
Dublin South East

Motion 20
Conference calls on Government to reactivate the proposal for café bars.
Dublin South East

The second is from a story on the RTE news website:

The PD conference in Wexford has voted overwhelmingly for the reactivation of party leader Michael McDowell’s café bar proposals. … The conference also voted in favour of a review of proposed Privacy legislation.

I’d say that the delegates from Dublin South East (the constituency of Michael McDowell, PD Party Leader, and Tánaiste (Deputy Prime Minister) and Minister for Justice) have set several cats among several pigeons with these motions. We’ll have to wait and see whether these policies make it into the forthcoming election manifesto (and any subsequent programme for government).

(Thanks to Daithí for tipping me off about this (offblog)).…

Read More »

Privacy on the beach

| No Comments
| Press Council, Privacy

The Press Complaints Commission in the UK can change its mind. And the right of privacy can now be asserted on the beach as a result.

Hello! Magazine logo via their websiteFirst, the change of mind. In 2000, the PCC held that newsreader Anna Ford did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy sufficient to restrain publication by OK! magazine of photos taken of her and her husband subathing on a private beach. This week, in an all-but identical case, the PCC held that model Elle Macpherson did have a sufficient expectation of privacy to complain about photos taken of her and her children sunbathing on a private beach on a private island. Roy Greenslade says that this “certainly qualifies” for the hackneyed cliché “landmark decision”, and I think he is right. …

Read More »

© cearta.ie 2024. Powered by WordPress