Legislation to bring the regulation and licensing of security personnel enforcing court orders within the remit of the Private Security Authority (PSA) is still at a drafting stage over a year after it was first mooted. Speaking on the launch of the PSA's annual report for 2019, Justice Minister Hel
Iccl
A landmark ruling five years ago has led to the Irish courts tending towards admitting evidence which has been obtained unconstitutionally, according to new research. The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) has published a new report by Professor Claire Hamilton, a criminology expert at Maynoot
Personal data transfers between the UK and the EU after Brexit are "in jeopardy" because the UK's privacy watchdog does not meet strict EU standards, privacy experts have warned. The need for the UK to pass an adequacy assessment to allow frictionless data transfers to continue after Brexit was high
An Garda Síochána's routine use of spit hoods during the COVID-19 pandemic is incompatible with human rights law on torture or other forms of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment, civil liberties campaigners have said. The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) called
Garda enforcement powers should not be reintroduced as part of the partial reinstatement of COVID-19 restrictions in Ireland, the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) has said. The civil liberties group reiterated the position it has held since the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis that public he
Irish tech expert Dr Johnny Ryan FRHistS has joined the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) as a senior fellow in its information rights programme. Dr Ryan joins ICCL from Brave, where he was chief policy and industry relations officer reporting to CEO Brendan Eich, the inventor of JavaScript.
The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) has deepened its connections to social movements and grassroots organisations, according to its latest annual report. Writing in the introduction to its 2019 annual report, executive director Liam Herrick said the organisation has shifted its identity awa
Computing experts have raised serious privacy and data harvesting concerns relating to Google software running on the phones of all Android smartphone users who want to use Ireland's COVID-19 contact tracing app. Professor Douglas Leith, chair of computing systems at Trinity College Dublin, and his
The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) has welcomed "ambitious and positive" commitments in the draft Programme for Government agreed by Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and the Green Party. The civil liberties group said there were strong commitments in relation to 10 of the 18 calls for human r
Criminal penalties for breaking restrictions on movement introduced to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic have been scrapped. New regulations which came into force yesterday do not include a criminal penalty for people travelling more than 20 kilometres outside of their county.
Data protection experts have published a "principled framework" for the development of a contact tracing app to help stop the spread of COVID-19 in Ireland. The document, produced by the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) alongside Digital Rights Ireland and independent academics and experts,
Gardaí should lose the power to arrest people for failing to comply with public health guidelines in less than two weeks, the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) has said. The rights group has called for the policing powers introduced under the Health Act 1947 (Section 31a – Tempor
The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) has written to the Garda Commissioner over the "wholly inappropriate" involvement of armed gardaí in the response to coronavirus. The group wrote to Garda Commissioner Drew Harris yesterday afternoon following reports from across the State about ar
Researcher Ethan Shattock argues that disinformation is a human rights issue and a human rights approach is needed in potential regulatory responses. In recent weeks, the outbreak of COVID-19 has demonstrated how false rumours, unverified information, and harmful lies can be spread with rapid speed
The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) has said it will closely monitor the Government's use of new emergency powers introduced to tackle the coronavirus pandemic. In a statement yesterday, the rights group said new restrictions on non-essential services and outside gatherings were "necessary