Legislators need to define what “harmful communication” is before they try and address the problem in laws, a legal expert has said.

The government has made little or no progress in tackling online abuse, child sexual exploitation, harassment and intimidation despite numerous investigations, an Oireachtas committee has been told.

An alternative method for applying for the new National Childcare Scheme online, other than the public services card, was dramatically dropped on the advice of a State body with responsibility for the card’s expansion in January 2018.

The Government is goading the Data Protection Commissioner into taking it to court, mostly as a delaying tactic, says Michael Clifford

The Passport Office will no longer require a person to have a Public Services Card to acquire a passport, the Irish Examiner can reveal.

The Government’s decision to challenge the Data Protection Commissioner’s highly adversarial rulings on the Public Services Card has been condemned as “ludicrous” and “incredibly bizarre”.

The Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection, Regina Doherty, faced calls for her resignation last night as the fallout from the Data Protection Commissioner’s investigation into the Public Services Card continued.

Draft legislation aimed at reforming State access to communication data is in breach of European law, a leading human rights body has warned.

Gardaí are set to continue accessing communication data of individuals despite warnings in the Murray report about the dangers of breaching EU law.

If the PSC walks like a national ID card and talks like a national ID card, then guess what — it is a national ID card, writes Daniel McConnell. 

The State’s independent legal advisory body has not been requested to examine the country’s surveillance laws — eight months after the Government said it planned to do so.

The Government is to be briefed in the coming weeks on forthcoming laws giving law enforcement agencies powers to intercept email and internet communications.

Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald has said a Law Reform Commission report on online abuse has highlighted potential gaps in the law.

The Government is to ask the State’s legal experts to examine the law around its right to access communications data but not before it gives law enforcement agencies the power to intercept email and internet content.

Health Minister Leo Varadkar has warned that gardaí are taking part in “sinister” acts breaching private citizens’ rights after it emerged that the force has used covert surveillance and tapped journalists’ phones and computers.

Health Minister Leo Varadkar has warned gardaí are taking part in "sinister" acts which breach private citizens' rights after it emerged journalists' phones and computers have been tapped and subjected to covert surveillance by the force.

Digital rights experts have called for British-style levels of oversight on the shadowy world of surveillance.

Google has begun removing some search results following a recent European Union ruling, although a digital rights expert here said the manner in which it was doing so was "a little disappointing".

Digital rights campaigners have hailed the decision by the European Court of Justice to throw out the Data Retention Directive — opening the way for a new challenge to Irish laws on the retention of personal data records here.

The EU's laws on electronic surveillance have been struck down by its highest court - following a challenge from an Irish lobby group.

Secret recordings of conversations between gardaí and journalists about the Sophie Toscan du Plantier murder are unlikely to be released to the reporters involved, the Data Protection Commissioner has warned.

A social media website linked to cyberbullying and teen suicides has hired spin doctors to repair its reputation following a series of public relations disasters.

The Department of Justice has defended the growing number of cases of gardaí accessing emails and said existing laws allowed for the practice.

Gardaí sought access to hundreds of personal emails and other electronic accounts last year amid growing concerns over the safeguards protecting privacy.

Internet search giant Google has claimed the introduction of digital literacy on the school curriculum would dramatically increase the safety of children online.

Irish cybercrime law is inadequate and outdated and this may favour two young Irish students alleged to be at the centre of a global hacking ring if the US seeks to extradite them, a law expert has said.

New internet piracy laws being formulated by the Government will harm the country’s thriving digital industry, an expert has claimed.

SIX more complaints about Facebook have been lodged with the Data Protection Commissioner (DPC) over how the social network giant handles personal information.

Cormac O’Keeffe says advances in cars and mobile phones may compromise right to privacy

FACEBOOK bosses in Ireland are to come under pressure after it emerged another complaint (the 17th so far) is on its way to the Data Protection Commissioner.

AN Irish website hosting photographs of “hot guys” and “sexy girls” using public transport appeared to be shut down last night, hours after removing pictures of people who did not consent to the images being published.

The digital economy is likely to spearhead much of the world’s future innovation and Ireland must establish itself as a location of choice for emerging companies in the digital sector, a seminar in Dublin heard today.

POLITICIANS have long lived with the threat of being voted, heaved or impeached from office but could the day be looming when one of them faces the humiliation of being tweeted out of a job?

The Chairman of Digital Rights Ireland TJ McIntyre is giving a guarded welcome to legislation which will give Gardaí the power to take DNA samples from suspects.

THERE has been a move towards greater surveillance of everyday life for some time now, says TJ McIntyre, lecturer at the School of Law in UCD.

THE British government was wrong to spy on phone calls, faxes and emails between Ireland and Britain, Europe’s highest court has ruled.

MOVES to register pay-as-you-go mobile phone users were condemned as sinister and unworkable by civil liberties campaigners last night.

A CIVIL liberties watchdog is “extremely concerned” at EU discussions for new biometric passports which could see Irish children as young as six compulsorily fingerprinted.

The State could be facing a legal challenge over laws which allow the collection and retention of data relating to phone calls.