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tjmcintyre

@tjmcintyre@mastodon.social

Posts about all things law and technology, mostly privacy and data protection. I’m associate professor of law at University College Dublin, chairperson of Digital Rights Ireland, and a consultant solicitor with FP Logue LLP.

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tjmcintyre, to random
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Ireland, right now.

tjmcintyre, to random
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Great story in Computer Weekly discussing the recent CJEU judgment on accessing Encrochat data under the European Investigation Order.

Many, many issues involved but one key finding is that a Member State which intends to use spyware against an individual located in another Member State must notify that other Member State. (Whether or not the spyware would be regarded as "interception of communications" under national law.)
https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366583692/Germany-European-Court-of-Justice-ruling-on-EncroChat-could-lead-to-new-legal-challenges

https://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2024-04/cp240077en.pdf

tjmcintyre, to random
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https://www.channel4.com/news/northern-ireland-police-carried-out-industrial-level-spying-on-journalists-high-court-hears

tjmcintyre, to random
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How the Irish state fought a rearguard action against the European Court of Justice to keep illegally spying on Irish citizens: https://www.tjmcintyre.com/2024/05/data-retention-in-ireland-when-european.html?m=1

tjmcintyre, to random
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Need private voice transcription? MacWhisper is an exceptionally good program to run Open AI Whisper locally on your Mac. Very good free tier and once off payment to upgrade. Handles academic jargon and legal terms better than any other service I’ve seen. No connection with the author other than being a satisfied customer. https://goodsnooze.gumroad.com/l/macwhisper

tjmcintyre,
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@derickr Nice work and good point about the need for an ethical model.

tjmcintyre,
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@derickr For me, local execution is important. I've been pleasantly surprised with Whisper's performance even on a 8GB M1 Mac.

tjmcintyre, to random
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Yesterday's second major surveillance judgment from the CJEU, which I'm just getting to now, is narrow but important.

The CJEU permits access to retained telecoms traffic data for "serious offences". In this case the CJEU clarifies that the authorising body must be able to refuse access if the particular crime being investigated is not in substance a serious offence. It is not enough that crimes of this type carry a possible sentence of 3 years imprisonment. 1/

https://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2024-04/cp240076en.pdf

tjmcintyre, to random
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A new open letter signed by more than 270 scientists from 33 countries warning for the risks of the modified CSAM (child sexual abuse) regulation proposed by the Belgian presidency.
http://csa-scientist-open-letter.org

I've co-signed and can answer media inquiries for Ireland

tjmcintyre, to random
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There's a real chance that Tesla has entered a death spiral. The problem is that its cars are so heavily dependant on networked services that a failing company means a bricked car. Now would not be a good time to buy a new one. https://news.yahoo.com/autos/list-tesla-execs-left-elon-212931734.html

tjmcintyre, to random
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Today's big data protection news is the judgment from the CJEU. The question is whether and how IP addresses held by telcos under national data retention law for investigating crime can be accessed by a civil body for investigating file sharing. The case has had a peculiar procedure, having been reheard before the full court and the ultimate judgment looks like a compromise cobbled together to command a majority in the court. 1/

Press release: https://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2024-04/cp240075en.pdf

tjmcintyre,
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The net result is that states can require ISPs to retain source IP data of users for use against filesharing, and that the national authority can almost always access that source IP data and user identity data without prior independent authorisation. There are some references to separating IP data from other data and limiting its use, but overall this seems to be a substantial walk back from the first LQDN judgment. /fin

tjmcintyre,
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Some possible silver linings: the judgment (machine translation) says: "prior control by a court or an independent administrative entity is necessary when ... access carries the risk of serious interference with fundamental rights of the data subject in that it could allow the public authority to draw precise conclusions about the privacy of that person and ... to establish his detailed profile." This may require prior independent authorisation of access to user IDs in other investigations.

tjmcintyre, to random
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I miss the old Twitter on days like today. Three major data retention/data protection/surveillance judgments out at once from the CJEU but so far barely a peep on X, here, or Bluesky. (Apart from the indefatigable @StevePeers.) The tech law community has lost a great space for conversations.

tjmcintyre, to random
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Absolutely astonishing story of Russian agents bombing and poisoning their way across Europe. https://theins.press/en/politics/271205

tjmcintyre, to random
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Another piece of GPDR news from yesterday I'm only getting around to: in Case C-768/21 | Land Hessen https://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2024-04/cp240063en.pdf Advocate General Pikamäe gave quite a strong opinion on the duties of data protection authorities to act when they find a data protection breach, stating that "the complaints procedure would serve no purpose if the supervisory authority could remain passive in the face of a legal situation contrary to EU law". This would be very significant if followed by the court.

tjmcintyre, to random
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Busy yesterday, so I didn't get a chance to toot out this latest CJEU judgment on damages under the GDPR in GP v. juris GmbH: https://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&docid=284641&pageIndex=0&doclang=en&mode=req&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=1356248. As far as I can see it's a useful restatement of basic principle (breach of rights doesn't equate to damage) but other doesn't really clarify the position on the contentious issue of non-material damage and when loss of control amounts to damage.

tjmcintyre, to random
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Classifications are funny things.

image/gif

tjmcintyre, to random
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When can tech firms voluntarily disclose user data to police? I've written a chapter on the position for firms with an Irish presence (i.e. almost all of them), now on SSRN: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4732793

tjmcintyre, to random
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In case you missed it, in the last week or so the European Court of Human Rights has held that:

Chamber judgments only (not Grand Chamber) but very promising signs from a court which has been more indulgent of surveillance than the CJEU.

tjmcintyre, to random
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Fantastic short piece by Rory Cellan-Jones on the fraud that is Craig Wright, with this great paragraph. https://rorycellanjones.substack.com/p/the-battle-of-bitcoin

neil, to random

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    tjmcintyre,
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    @neil The DTEN screens are quite impressive, but probably overkill if it's a single user. (https://zoom.us/hardwareItem?name=DTEN%20ON)

    tjmcintyre, to random
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    Irish Department of Health fined for illegally collecting sensitive personal data on families suing it. "This information included details about plaintiff’s jobs and living circumstances, information about their parents’ marital difficulties and in one case, information received directly from a doctor about the services that were being provided to the plaintiff."

    https://dataprotection.ie/en/resources/law/decisions/Inquiry-concerning-the-Department-of-Health

    tjmcintyre, to random
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    Everyone's talking about today's huge CJEU judgment and what it means for Meta.

    But there are massive implications for digital evidence in criminal matters also.

    Paras.124-139 rule out any argument that platforms may retain data for future sharing with police in criminal investigations without an explicit legal requirement to do so, while also providing that legitimate interest is not a general basis for voluntary sharing of data with police.

    1/2

    image/png

    janwwbosch, to random

    @tjmcintyre can't view if you're not logged in to twitter

    tjmcintyre,
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    @1br0wn @janwwbosch
    @Jock

    Let's treat it as meta commentary on the state of Twitter, rather than an oversight on my part.

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