Data mining made law
Despite Facebook scandal, the Justice Minister will today change law to allow use of your data for election purposes
PROPOSED laws allowing sensitive personal data to be harvested to reveal people’s political opinions for electoral purposes are set to go ahead despite the revelations of recent days.
Amendments to the Data Protection Act 2018, set to be tabled today by Justice Minister Charlie Flanagana, do not address the concerns raised by the Cambridge Analytica scandal and are merely cosmetic, critics say.
It is alleged British data analysis firm Cambridge Analytica harvested private information from the Facebook profiles of more than 50 million users without their permission in 2014. That information was ultimately used to exploit the social media activity of millions of US voters ahead of Donald Trump’s 2016 electoral campaign.
The Data Protection Act is intended to bring Irish law in line with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)which enters into EU law in May.
But Section 43 of the Act, which enables data mining for political opinions, actually offers less protections than the GDPR. Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin have queried why it is necessary at all.
Section 43 states ‘the processing of personal data revealing political opinions shall be lawful’ where the processing is carried out ‘in the course of electoral activities’ by political parties, office holders, election candidates or by a Referendum Commission.
The GDPR explicitly prohibits the processing of personal data revealing political opinions.
An earlier version of the new Data Protection law also permitted data processing by ‘a body established by or under an enactment’. Those terms were so broad that they met with fierce opposition in the Seanad, leading to the revised amendment to be tabled by the minister today.
Yet the new version does not rule out the threat of third parties like Cambridge Analytica being contracted to mine sensitive data.
Fianna Fáil tech spokesman James Lawless told the Irish Daily Mail: ‘I think it is largely cosmetic. Third party processing is not explicitly prohibited but before the amendment it was specifically enabled. So that’s a step forward I suppose.’
But he said serious questions remain. ‘I’m still not sure if it’s compatible with the GDPR. There would need to be rationale for why they would need personal data as opposed to anonymous data, the kind that would be used by Red C for example. You have a sample of 1,000 people’s political views, but who those people are is secret.
‘Under old data protection laws, that was classified as sensitive personal data. That means data you wouldn’t want to be shared, that could reveal your sexuality, gender, political opinions. Under the old regime that would have had a higher level of protection. It raises a lot of questions.
‘This is the kind of data that Cambridge Analytica used, that was specific to individuals.’
Sinn Féin justice spokesman Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire agred that Section 43 weakens protections offered under the GDPR. ‘It is completely cosmetic and doesn’t address primary concerns.’
Independent Senator Alice Mary Higgins will today table amendments she says will close the loopholes that allow for the processing of sensitive personal data revealing ‘religious or political beliefs, biometric data, racial or ethnic origin or sexual orientation’.
A Department of Justice spokesman said: ‘There are no grounds on which this State could become a hub for the processing of political opinion data in respect of elections or electoral activity taking place in other countries.’ Comment – Page 14 james.ward@dailymail.ie
‘It raises a lot of questions’
THERE has been worldwide outrage this week following the revelation that a socalled data mining firm, Cambridge Analytica, effectively harvested the personal details of more than 50million Facebook users without their knowledge or permission and used this to build profiles of their political loyalties.
This then allowed the company to target them with specific messages in advance of the US presidential election, playing on their fears and even spreading fake news.
Perhaps mindful of the calamitous effect of the exposé on his company’s share price and on his personal fortune, Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg yesterday admitted the social media giant made mistakes and would re-evaluate its position on data sharing. So why then is the Government insisting on pressing ahead with laws that will allow for people’s sensitive personal data revealing their political opinions to be harvested for electoral purposes?
The Data Protection Act is intended to bring Irish law in line with the General Data Protection Regulation, which will enter into EU law in May – but Opposition parties say Section 43 of the Act, which enables data mining for political opinions, actually offers less protections than what is contained in the GDPR.
They also say last-minute amendments to the Data Protection Act set to be tabled today by Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan do not address the concerns raised by the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
We agree. At a time when everyone is sensitive to how their data is used, this smacks of crass stupidity.