Third probe is launched into INM
A THIRD investigation has been launched into Independent News and Media over the removal of large amounts of data from its headquarters.
INM was served yesterday with ‘formal notices of investigation’ by data protection chiefs.
The company is already being investigated by the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement and the Central Bank.
In recent days, Data Protection Commissioner Helen Dixon formally launched her inquiry into the media company, the court was told yesterday.
This heaps further pressure on INM days before the High Court is due to hear, in full, a bid by Director of Corporate Enforcement Ian Drennan to send inspectors into the media group.
Mr Justice Peter Kelly, President of the High Court, yesterday granted Ms Dixon permission to use documents relating to the ODCE’s ongoing case against INM ‘for the purposes of her investigation into INM under the Data Protection Acts of 1988’.
The Data Protection Commissioner had been provided with those documents by a High Court order of May 24, it was heard, but she needed to apply to the court for permission to use them for her investigation.
While ruling that Ms Dixon can use the documents for her inquiry – in order to ‘assist the Commissioner [Ms Dixon] in the exercise of her statutory functions’ – Judge Kelly revealed a full inquiry was now underway.
He said: ‘The Data Protection Commissioner has commenced a formal investigation into INM, having served formal notice on June 26…The Data Protection Commissioner has statutory obligations and entitlement to investigate matters that fall within her remit.’
Meanwhile, next week, the High Court will be asked to decide if a team of ODCE inspectors should be allowed into INM to examine the data breach, alleged to have taken place in 2014.
Inspectors study data breach
The ODCE has been investigating whether INM’s servers were accessed in 2014 by an outside team who removed ‘large, indiscriminate quantities of data’, including emails for the benefit of a mystery third-party.
It is also seeking to establish whether former INM chairman Leslie Buckley ‘ordered’ the large-scale trawl.
It’s suspected that the purpose was to ‘find information’ on specific individuals, including the newspaper group’s former chief executive Gavin O’Reilly and its former Director of Corporate Affairs, Karl Brophy, and others.
Both Mr O’Reilly and Mr Brophy left the company in 2012.
The data trawl has also caused major concern to some of the company’s current and former journalists, including Sam Smyth, who now writes a column for the Irish Mail on Sunday.
Separately, businessman Denis O’Brien, who owns a 29.9% stake in INM, is currently suing PR firm Red Flag, which is run by Mr O’Reilly and Mr Brophy. In that action, Mr O’Brien alleges a ‘conspiracy’ to damage his reputation with a dossier that labelled him ‘Ireland’s Berlusconi’.