Spying has whiff of Big Brother

The efforts to spy on citizens who criticised the direct provision centre system would be better used to fix the shameful arrangement 

Critics of direct provision have been spied upon on social media.

The report that Department of Justice officials have spied on citizens who criticised our failing direct provision (DP) system on social media must be a cause for concern. What was the basis for that prying? Has the department the right to spy on legitimate civic campaigning? If officials suspected wrongdoing, why were the gardaí not asked to deal with it? There is altogether too much of a whiff of Big Brother about this, a feeling confirmed by the fact that individuals' views were included in daily government reports. Surely, the effort and energy, resources, too, required to do this would have been much better used to fix the shameful DP system.

The feeling that 'official' Ireland has yet to appreciate the responsibilities and limits of data management is deepened by the fact that health watchdog, Tusla, suffered over 200 data breaches in just over a year and a half, including 23 that were classified as “high” risk.