Privacy laws - Protection safeguards badly needed

Privacy is very important to people, so it was disturbing that the gardaí were revealed to be checking private phone records unnecessarily on the grounds of investigating crime.

Because the current legislation does not specify what a serious crime is, the system is open to abuse and needs to be seriously amended, as pointed out by Data Protection Commissioner Billy Hawkes in his annual report.

Safeguards are glaringly needed to protect privacy, and not just in relation to the gardaí. Only three complaints were made against newspapers because of stories, according to the report.