‘I won’t join a talking shop where nothing will change’
TOP cyber-psychologist Dr Mary Aiken and Professor Barry O’Sullivan have dismissed today’s conference on online safety as ‘one-sided’.
Dr Aiken, who is adjunct associate professor at UCD and was the inspiration behind hit show CSI Cybercrime, told the Irish Daily Mail: ‘I had reached out to the Minister, [Denis] Naughten, in January to discuss the Irish Digital Age of Consent – we spoke by phone.
‘He then invited me to the open policy forum, which I believed would be a good platform to have a robust debate on the important topic.’
However, she went on to explain that last month – a full month before the conference – she was surprised when Fine Gael Minister Charlie Flanagan launched the Data Protection Bill 2018 in Seanad Éireann whereby the Irish digital age of consent would be set at 13, which she believes is too young.
‘I realised at that point that the socalled Open Policy Debate was actually going to be a “one-sided policy
‘Pandering to tech companies’
debate” – that of a Government that had already made up its mind on the critical matter of the Irish digital age of consent.
‘I wrote to the minister to withdraw from the event, stating that I cannot have my photo and biog used to potentially endorse the Government position on lowering the Irish digital age of consent – a position I absolutely oppose. This was a personal choice and a matter of conscience,’ Dr Aiken added.
Dr Aiken also emailed Mr Naughten to outline her position.
‘As the Government continues an agenda of apparently pandering to technology companies, and facilitating the commercialisation of Irish children, in conscience I cannot participate in yet another talk shop where nothing will change. My time is best spent elsewhere,’ she said.
‘As academics, we absolutely believe in transparency, full consultation and robust, timely debate of an issue – this was not, in my opinion, going to happen. I did, however, offer an alternative participant for the forum – I asked Professor (Barry) O’Sullivan, an eminent expert, to replace me on the panel, he agreed – however the minister and his team declined to accept.’
UCC’s Professor O’Sullivan, who is a founding director of the Insight Centre for Data Analytics at University College Cork, was also critical of this morning’s event.
He told the Irish Daily Mail last night that he did not believe Mr Naughten’s policy debate is a valid and ‘genuine debate’. He said: ‘Unfortunately I don’t believe Minister Naughten’s policy debate today has an appropriate diversity of opinion on issues such as the digital age of consent on its panels to regard it as a valid and genuine debate.
‘I would have been very happy to participate as a panellist and offer a diverse position, and I offered to do so. That offer was not accepted.
‘I must say, the objective of today’s event isn’t clear to me. It seems to be more about political optics that a robust debate on the issues.
‘Dr Mary Aiken and I have a position that is at variance with the Government’s draft legislation. Specifically, we believe that the digital age of consent should be set at 16 years for many reasons we have set out publicly. Sixteen will be the default across Europe from May, but member states have the option of setting it as low as 13 – the Government has opted for that lowest possible age.
‘This is simply too young. It is not appropriate to take parents out of the equation and allow children as young as 13 to have the power to consent to having their personal data profiled for commercial gain by social media companies. I believe Irish parents are totally in the dark about the consequences of the Government’s position,’ he added.