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New figures show that state agencies have made more than 1,250 requests for disclosure of access to private online information of individuals from Internet companies.
An investigation by an Irish examiner on a highly secretive and controversial spying power also reveals:
16,500 personal phone data requests were disclosed by the country's largest mobile operator, Vodafone, over a three-year period;
The Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission (GSOC) received almost 100 requests for access to personal data from telecom companies and Internet companies between 2012 and 2017.
It is believed that the GSOC is the first state agency with the power to access communication data, to voluntarily and publicly provide figures. This followed repeated requests from this newspaper.
The position of the Garda Ombudsman contrasts with the other three agencies that use power – An Garda Síochána (by far the largest user), the Defense Forces and Revenue, all of whom have repeatedly refused to publish statistics.
This is despite EU court rulings and a judicial investigation that undermined the legal basis for the widespread and indiscriminate retention of this data and the possibility for state agencies to access it through 'an internal procedure, without first requesting an external expert court authorization.
The investigation of the Irish Examiner revealed:
- 1,259 disclosure requests were sent to four major ISPs (Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Twitter) between 2012 and June 2018, involving 14,000 users or accounts;
- Just over 60% of these requests (768) were accepted, the other requests were rejected or no data / information found;
- Facebook has received 537 disclosure requests, Microsoft 482, Google 217 (with 13 additional disclosure requests) and Twitter 23;
- Microsoft figures show that out of the 316 accepted disclosure requests, 58 disclosed the data content and 258 were data without content or communication data;
- In addition to providing 10 disclosures, Twitter also responded to 30 referrals from Gardaí and 3 to the courts;
- 16,490 requests for communication data were disclosed by Vodafone (which controls 45% of the mobile phone market) between April 2013 and April 2016;
- Three other major telecommunications companies (Three, Eir and Virgin) do not publish any data and refused to do so on demand, although Three (which owns 39% of the mobile phone market) has announced its intention to publish data in the next months.
GSOC has received approval for 95 disclosure requests between 2012 and 2017.
A bill to solve the legal problems was published more than a year ago following the publication of the Murray report, which examined the law in this area. The final law, the draft law on communication (data retention) 2017, is still awaited.
Last month, the judge charged with monitoring the implementation of the provisions, Judge Marie Baker, said that there was an "emergency" in the legislation.
State agencies use the power to access communications data to investigate serious crimes, save lives and protect national security.
It is believed that the latest published data on communication data relate to 2014 or the period 2008-2012.
Communication data has been described as "a vast store of private information" about how people use their phones and digital devices.
This includes their network and history of phone contacts and their online activities – anything other than the actual content of communications.
A spokesperson for the Department of Justice said the amending bill was "well advanced" with amendments to give effect to the committee's recommendations.
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