antoin@eire.com

The government wants all mobile phones to be registered. According to the Programme for Government, ageed last month:

The government will … require all mobile phones to be registered with name, address and proof of identity in order to stop drug-pushers using untraceable, unregistered phones.

But I got the following email from the Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources in January this year:

The idea for a Register of mobile phones was extensively reviewed by officials in the Department. There were many complex legal, technical, data protection and practical issues to be considered. In theory, a Register of mobile phones might seem like a good idea. However, having looked at the situation in other administrations, considered the ease with which an unregistered foreign or stolen SIM card can be used and the difficulties that would be posed in verifying identity in the
absence of a national identification card system, and having consulted with the Office of the Attorney General and other interested parties, it was concluded that the proposal would be of limited benefit, in that it would not solve the illegal and inappropriate use of pre-paid mobile
phones and was not practical.

NSAI (the Irish national standards body) has posted an invitation for comments on its site regarding the proposed new Office Open XML standard (ISO/IEC DIS 29500). NSAI has established an ad hoc committee to consider the matter, and I am a member of that committee, together with a number of far more important and qualified people.

Anyway, we are anxious to hear from anyone who has a view on what way NSAI should vote on this standard when it reaches committee. If you can provide links to any relevant articles, that would also be very helpful. If you have time, please review the documents and leave your comments either here or send them to the committee.

Someone recently asked me how the music industry can deal with piracy and make money out of online downloads. I had a few ideas about it (mainly centred around the idea that you just can’t lock down music copying completely). Revenues are falling in the industry, from around $38 bn to less than $30 billion in  a few years and that’s without taking inflation into account. But I thought I’d throw it out there -

• what concrete steps can the music industry take to stop, or at least slow down piracy?
• how can the music industry make money from peer-to-peer and music downloads?
• how could they trial this?

Damien Mulley writes about what you should ask when politicians call.

You should ask your candidate (particularly PD or FF TD’s) where they stand on personal privacy. Ask them whether you think the government has any business recording details of the people you telphone, the web pages you look at or the places you go carry your mobile telephone.

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EDRI-gram article, or read about it on the Dutch Data Protection Officer’s website. And don’t forget to support Digital Rights Ireland’s challenge to the directive.

Eoin O’Dell writes about data retention, US style

There was an item on Marian Finucane’s radio show today about loyalty cards. I was disappointed that the knowledge of all of the people on the show about how loyalty cards actually work in economic terms, and how the data collected is actually used was very weak indeed.

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The Irish Independent and other newspapers report that the Gardaí didn’t bother to investigate leads passed on to them by their Austrian counterparts. The leads are said to have included IP addresses of the people allegedly involved.

What is the point in data retention, if you don’t bother following up leads?

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Daithi Mac Stithigh points out that today is European Data Protection day (see Lex Ferenda » Going on a data? Use protection). He also suggests that this is a good time to make a contribution to Digital Rights Ireland. It has to be said, data protection is a strange sort of law. But it is really important to understand it and enforce it, even when it doesn’t seem important.

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Eoin O’Dell has unleashed his new blog, cearta.ie on the world. Eoin is a lecturer in law and the most reliable source I know for infomation about anything legal - he seems to consume High Court rulings like children consume chocolate bars. He has advised the Irish government, through the Law Reform Commission about things like defamation law (although they don’t listen to what he says carefully enough). He is a board member of Digital Rights Ireland, and a very nice fellow too.