Damien Mulley

Now that you or a family member got a phone for Christmas, donate the old one and win another!

Photo owned by BluEyedA73 (cc)

Baaaa. More continued bullshit from one of the most ineffectual entities in this state. The Data Protection Commissioner, the one that releases a report with go-faster stripes each year and makes a mini-celebrity out of one case while doing nothing for everything else is now saying they’ll be getting tougher on spammers. Complete and utter bollox. They have a “new weapon” against spammers. Which they’ll keep well polished and stored away for safety no doubt.

2008 they let people reoffend again and again. 2007 they let someone go after harassing thousands because it was their first offence.

How many companies were fined last year after being investigated? How many were dragged through the courts? How many got away with blue murder?

Photo owned by Oceanik (cc)

I’d FOI them for this information but their smug press officer got great kicks telling me a while back on the phone that they don’t come under FOI. It was suggested I send in an information request when I asked for details about the Bank of Ireland laptop thefts. So this is what I sent in:

RTE last week reported that the Data Protection Commissioner’s Office delivered a report to Bank of Ireland which included recommendations to prevent future data loss. Bank of Ireland said they would not release that report. I was looking for said report but obviously with the commercially sensitive information removed. I doubt that all the report is giving away BOI’s IP.

I also wanted to get details of the costs involved in putting that report together. Numbers of staff and manhours involved.

This is what I got back:

As you are aware, no regulations are currently in force specifying this office as a body to which the Freedom of Information Acts apply. As a matter of good practice and with due regard to the privacy of the parties involved, we endeavour to keep both data subjects and data controllers informed of the progress of investigations. This does not apply to your request. Having reviewed your request, I won’t release any of this information to you.

The DPC blow taxpayer money to advise a Bank but refuse to disclose how much it cost and what advice it was. Course there’s a trend when it comes to using taxmoney to keep banks happy. It’s a shame this shower didn’t get culled in the budget cuts because sometimes an expensive and out of synch clock is more dangerous than no clock.