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A LARGE PROPORTION of Irish people believe a person’s should not be required to give up their privacy and freedom for safety from crime and terrorism, a new survey has found.
The research, published by Microsoft and carried out by Amarach Consulting, asked people about their stance towards privacy and their digital rights.
It found that 75% of people agreed there should be a balance struck between people’s rights and using their data to fight crime, while 71% believed that they shouldn’t have to give up privacy and freedom for safety from crime.
It found that 87% agreed that personal information stored on cloud services like Dropbox and Google Drive should have the same privacy protections as personal information stored on paper. Also, 89% said that a foreign government shouldn’t be able to demand personal information stored in the country without first consulting the Irish government.
When asked whether they were concerned that Europe’s uncertainty about data centre privacy could undermine Ireland’s status as a technology hub and cost jobs and investment, 65% said they were.
Speaking about the survey findings, the CEO of IBEC, Danny McCoy said that the future growth of the data economy will “be inextricably linked to the consumer and business confidence in privacy.”
Striking the right balance between the rights of the consumer, data protection and law enforcement is essential… The warrant is causing significant legal uncertainty and may hamper future investment.
‘Ongoing legal battle’
And the reason for the survey: Microsoft is still in a legal battle with a US court about handing over email data that is stored in Ireland.
It received a criminal search warrant from prosecutors involved in a drug trafficking investigation, and while Microsoft argued that these emails belong to their customers and are outside of US jurisdiction anyway, the judge ruled that since Microsoft is a US firm and controls the data, it must comply.
This is concerning because handing over the data would mean the company would be in breach of Irish and European data protection law.
While there is a legal process for following such concerns, the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty which allows US prosecutors to apply to Irish courts for the release of information, there had been no communication.
Recently, the Irish government has turned to the European Commission for help dealing with these demands and check if EU data protection laws would be breached if US authorities obtained data held in Ireland.
In a statement the Minister for European Affairs and Data Protection Dara Murphy said that while all three have “excellent relations with respect to cooperation on criminal matters… when it comes to the transfer of personal data, it is vital that we get the process right.”
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I always find this interesting because we would have an outrage if our post was opened, read and then sent to our house with tape on it. But when its an email which nowadays contains the same information if not more is scanned by a government agency people just let it happen or have no idea it even happened. Just because we don’t see it doesn’t make it acceptable especially because it assumes everyone is guilty until proven innocent (especially the NSA)
Digital data should be treated like any other. If authorities require access to someone’s data to tackle a crime, they should acquire a warrant to do so. Otherwise, we have all kinds of obstruction of justice on our hands.
‘Those who sacrifice liberty for security, deserve neither and will lose both’
Benjamin Franklin
One of my favourite quotes paul!
He was a very clever man. All of the American founding fathers were. The quote is very apt considering the borderline police state in the US today – we have to spy on all of you to stop those darn terrorists ;).
1 the governments never anticipated how much the internet would grow and evolve and now they want control.
Or
2 they anticipated everything that has taken place and now need control.
I’m going for the latter.
We should definitely not be required to submit our privacy and freedom if the terrorism is manufacture by Zio corrupt Governments as in the case of 9/11 and 7/7 and Sandy Hook.
It won’t be too long before ISIS will start the ball rolling again, this will lead the West into an Orwellian Internet censorship, more militarized police and gestapo style check points.
The big one around Microsoft’s stance on this case is not that they are defying the US – it’s that the US are not going through the typical mechanisms which are already in place for such requests. The US is being cheeky in how they are asking for the access.
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