What you say on boards?

drunkmonkey

Just reading a different forum on boards and I'm not sure if the poster was just trying to shut someone up with a different viewpoint by saying they could be in trouble for comments they were making, question is do boards have to hand over ip addresses if requested and can those people be prosecuted for comments they made here? One poster seemed to suggest that to another.

I'm not involved in anyway and no mod is, I see it as a bit of banter and nothing more but could comments people make here get them in trouble back in the real world?

Paulw

drunkmonkey wrote: »

Just reading a different forum on boards and I'm not sure if the poster was just trying to shut someone up with a different viewpoint by saying they could be in trouble for comments they were making, question is do boards have to hand over ip addresses if requested and can those people be prosecuted for comments they made here? One poster seemed to suggest that to another.

Of course they can. Boards.ie has to abide by the law and is subject to court orders (such as to hand over details, IP addresses, etc).

FreudianSlippers

drunkmonkey wrote: »

Just reading a different forum on boards and I'm not sure if the poster was just trying to shut someone up with a different viewpoint by saying they could be in trouble for comments they were making, question is do boards have to hand over ip addresses if requested and can those people be prosecuted for comments they made here? One poster seemed to suggest that to another.

I'm not involved in anyway and no mod is, I see it as a bit of banter and nothing more but could comments people make here get them in trouble back in the real world?

There are actually a lot of "defamation" type requests made frequently. Usually they're not defamatory but there are hurt feelings.

People can contact boards.ie directly to request an IP, but boards are not obliged to cooperate without a court order. Often the Gardaí request (cannot remember the name of the request) and AFAIK boards always volunteers this info without orders.

For the most part though, unless it's defamatory or illegal boards does not hand out personal info very frequently.

It's also against the forum charters to threaten legal action against another user or boards. I'd probably infract someone who did it, perhaps ban in certain circumstances.

freeze4real

well if the comments are not true its LIBEL as its written down.

According to Irish law its publication of false statement.

An actionable defamatory statement has three ingredients:

• it must be published,
• it must refer to the complainant and
• it must be false.

FreudianSlippers

freeze4real wrote: »

well if the comments are not true its LIBEL as its written down.

Section 6 Defamation Act 2009.

Delancey

OP , Boards.ie only supply details of a users IP address on receipt of an order under Section 8 of the Data Protection Act.
Boards regularly receive letters from Solicitors demanding such details but the standard reply is that they must first obtain a Section 8 Order which must be granted by a judge , apparently that is usually the last that is heard.
If such an order is presented then boards would have to comply with it.

Legislation allows for a senior Garda or Army Officer to make a Section 8 Request and this again must be complied with.

I've been told that Section 8 orders have only been made on boards.ie on a tiny number of occassions ( fewer than 5 ).

We should be grateful that management at boards work hard to protect the privacy of the user population , I've heard that many other sites hand over details upon receipt of a legal letter ( seems they just ' bottle ' it ).

ANSI

Delancey wrote: »

Boards regularly receive letters from Solicitors demanding such details

From who, members or businesses they post about? Regularly seems a lot

Delancey

ANSI wrote: »

From who, members or businesses they post about? Regularly seems a lot

Dunno , probably a mixture of both the above.

michael999999

FreudianSlippers wrote: »

There are actually a lot of "defamation" type requests made frequently. Usually they're not defamatory but there are hurt feelings.

People can contact boards.ie directly to request an IP, but boards are not obliged to cooperate without a court order. Often the Gardaí request (cannot remember the name of the request) and AFAIK boards always volunteers this info without orders.

For the most part though, unless it's defamatory or illegal boards does not hand out personal info very frequently.

It's also against the forum charters to threaten legal action against another user or boards. I'd probably infract someone who did it, perhaps ban in certain circumstances.

So would it be possible for a Boards user to have an argument with another boards user who happens to be a guard, the guard takes the hump and requests the IP address of the other user. Maybe getting a couple of coleagues to call round to check hes tax/insurance?

Delancey

michael999999 wrote: »

So would it be possible for a Boards user to have an argument with another boards user who happens to be a guard, the guard takes the hump and requests the IP address of the other user. Maybe getting a couple of coleagues to call round to check hes tax/insurance?

No , only a Garda holding the rank of at least Superintendent ( maybe even Chief Superintendent ) can initiate a Section 8 order.

drunkmonkey

Delancey wrote: »

No , only a Garda holding the rank of at least Superintendent ( maybe even Chief Superintendent ) can initiate a Section 8 order.

Does a section 8 need to be approved by anyone else, a judge etc?
In other words if you were unfortunate enough to give a super the hump, can he just make a request for an ip on his own?

Interesting to read that other websites hand out your location details easily enough. Is there any national register keeping records of whom is making requests about who?

Delancey

drunkmonkey wrote: »

Does a section 8 need to be approved by anyone else, a judge etc?
In other words if you were unfortunate enough to give a super the hump, can he just make a request for an ip on his own?

Interesting to read that other websites hand out your location details easily enough. Is there any national register keeping records of whom is making requests about who?

Section 8 orders require a judges approval when it involves a civil matter.

I don't think a judges approval is required in criminal / national security matters however that does not mean a pissed off Garda Superintendent can issue such an order - to do that would expose him/her to potential action , the request would have to be justified and feeling sore at another user is not sufficient cause.

Bear in mind that literally thousands of messages are posted on boards every day and in its existence there have been only 3 or 4 Section 8 orders made.

Unless you threaten to blow up the cabinet or poison Dublins water supply I reckon your identity will stay secret

michael999999

Delancey wrote: »

Section 8 orders require a judges approval when it involves a civil matter.

I don't think a judges approval is required in criminal / national security matters however that does not mean a pissed off Garda Superintendent can issue such an order - to do that would expose him/her to potential action , the request would have to be justified and feeling sore at another user is not sufficient cause.

Bear in mind that literally thousands of messages are posted on boards every day and in its existence there have been only 3 or 4 Section 8 orders made.

Unless you threaten to blow up the cabinet or poison Dublins water supply I reckon your identity will stay secret

Only if Bertie is still in it!:D

Hal Emmerich

I'm remember reading one of Devore's posts about the first Solicitors letter they received into the Office looking for ips or whatever and that they were ****ting it....untill they found out it was only Section 8s they had to worry about.

They Auctioned the Letter off to pay for Servers.

Our man in Havana

Section 8

MagicSean

I could be wrong but I don't think boards insist on a Section 8 for criminal investigations. Many places don't.

Delancey

MagicSean wrote: »

I could be wrong but I don't think boards insist on a Section 8 for criminal investigations. Many places don't.

Yeah , I think I recall DeVore saying that they would not refuse the Guards given good reason , one example was a user who appeared to be ' grooming ' youngsters ( though on investigation he turned out to be someone with mental health issues amd more of a danger to himself than others ).

Dav

Hello all, someone pointed me at this thread just to give the "Official" answer

Delancey has it right for the most part, we don't give *any* data away without a Section 8. Criminal or Civil - we insist on it so that no one can question the legallity of how the information was sought or handed over and so that the Data Commissioners won't have grounds to question or audit us. It's worth noting that the Data Commissioner's office are a really good group of people to deal with and are very positive about what it is we do It's not a huge ordeal for the Gardaí to get a request as a Superintendent can sign off on one.

Since I've started working for the company 2 and a half years ago, I've only seen one Section 8 come into us. I think that "less than 5" is about right for the total we've ever received - the founders would know exactly.

It's also our policy to let anyone know if we've received a Section 8 in relation to them so that people aren't caught out or think we've just handed details over without reason.

As to the information that's given out: email address you've signed up with, IP address(es) and any other personal information voluntarily supplied.

We do get a lot of legal letters demanding the identity of people, I'm tempted some days to publish a list of solicitor firms who do this and say "These people have never heard of the Data Protection Act and therefore should probably stop practicing law until they learn about it" but that'd be bold Needless to say, I make it my civic duty to inform them of this law and why it means I can't tell them anything.

I hope that clears things up, I'm happy enough to answer any further questions here or via PM about this if people have any more.

tricky D

drunkmonkey wrote: »

Interesting to read that other websites hand out your location details easily enough. Is there any national register keeping records of whom is making requests about who?

The website will hand over the IP address which is then matched to an account by the ISP concerned.

Delancey wrote: »

Yeah , I think I recall DeVore saying that they would not refuse the Guards given good reason , one example was a user who appeared to be ' grooming ' youngsters ( though on investigation he turned out to be someone with mental health issues amd more of a danger to himself than others ).

This was in the very very early days of boards. DeV asked myself and a few other peers our opinion which was report. He fled the judrisdiction and was featured on a documentary. While he appeared to have mental issues, there was enough potential risk of danger to youngsters for the reporting to be appropriate.

Hal Emmerich

Dav wrote: »

We do get a lot of legal letters demanding the identity of people,

Can you go into any detail about this? Or give an example of a post that warranted a Solicitors Letter?

Is it Celebrities....or normal users?

mcmoustache

I'd love to see these letters but I suppose there's no point in antagonising the law firms and their clients.

It would be funny though. The Pirate Bay used to do it.

BrianD

Boards.ie have it covered in their privacy policy.

• We may disclose this information where required by law to do so;
• We may disclose this information to law enforcement, government officials or courts where we believe that disclosure is necessary and proportionate; and
• We may disclose this information where we believe that disclosure is necessary and proportionate for the protection of the legitimate interests of ourselves or of a third party.

Dav - I commend the fact that such requests require a "high bar" in the form of a Section 8 (as I'd imagine many are trivial) but doesn't the last term above give you the option to comply without a Section 8 if you wish?

Dav

Hal Emmerich wrote: »

Can you go into any detail about this? Or give an example of a post that warranted a Solicitors Letter?

Is it Celebrities....or normal users?

I'd rather not get into too many details as I'm sure you understand, but the majority are related to businesses. Small & Medium businesses come after us because Google ranks our content so high and they don't seem to have heard of SEO. Now, to be fair, quite often there are real grounds for complaint and we are legally obliged to act upon receipt of notification of something defamatory. Large and Multinationals actually try and fix the problem and occassionally contact us about addressing them and certainly almost never threaten to sue us over what amounts to one (or many) of their customers having had a bad experience.

mcmoustache wrote: »

I'd love to see these letters but I suppose there's no point in antagonising the law firms and their clients.

It would be funny though. The Pirate Bay used to do it.

There's nothing really to be gained by it to be fair, but it doesn't stop me thinking about it to make myself smile. Funnilly enough, the first ever legal letter Boards received (in 2004 I think it was) was raffled off at a beers

BrianD wrote: »

Boards.ie have it covered in their privacy policy.

Dav - I commend the fact that such requests require a "high bar" in the form of a Section 8 (as I'd imagine many are trivial) but doesn't the last term above give you the option to comply without a Section 8 if you wish?

That's there to allow us to persue an investigation with the information we've got. To give you an example, recently we had what I believe might have been a bot based series of posts of child pornography on the site. They went into forums that allow unregistered posting, but thankfully they're always left in moderation, so weren't made public on the site. In that instance, I rang Computer Crime in Harcourt St and said "here's the IP address they came from, if there's something we can do, lets do it" It would have been somewhat counter productive to report the crime, wait for a Chief Super to draft a Section 8 and give the policing investigating it the data when it's already ours to give. So the clause you mentioned allows for that Brian. Anything "external" to us though would require the proper paperwork.

intospace

Dav wrote: »

Hello all, someone pointed me at this thread just to give the "Official" answer

Delancey has it right for the most part, we don't give *any* data away without a Section 8. Criminal or Civil - we insist on it so that no one can question the legallity of how the information was sought or handed over and so that the Data Commissioners won't have grounds to question or audit us. It's worth noting that the Data Commissioner's office are a really good group of people to deal with and are very positive about what it is we do It's not a huge ordeal for the Gardaí to get a request as a Superintendent can sign off on one.

Since I've started working for the company 2 and a half years ago, I've only seen one Section 8 come into us. I think that "less than 5" is about right for the total we've ever received - the founders would know exactly.

It's also our policy to let anyone know if we've received a Section 8 in relation to them so that people aren't caught out or think we've just handed details over without reason.

As to the information that's given out: email address you've signed up with, IP address(es) and any other personal information voluntarily supplied.

We do get a lot of legal letters demanding the identity of people, I'm tempted some days to publish a list of solicitor firms who do this and say "These people have never heard of the Data Protection Act and therefore should probably stop practicing law until they learn about it" but that'd be bold Needless to say, I make it my civic duty to inform them of this law and why it means I can't tell them anything.

I hope that clears things up, I'm happy enough to answer any further questions here or via PM about this if people have any more.

am i misinterpreting section 8?..

it appears that only s. 8(a) refers to the requirement for a member not below the rank chief superintendent / army colonel to request data, and this is specifically in cases where the data is required for the purpose of safeguarding the security of the State (e.g. terrorist threats).

s. 8(b) then appears to outline separate circumstances whereby data may be disclosed, i.e. where required for the purpose of preventing, detecting or investigating offences, apprehending or prosecuting offenders or assessing or collecting any tax, duty or other moneys owed or payable to the State, a local authority or a health board, in any case in which the application of those restrictions would be likely to prejudice any of the matters aforesaid,

there is no mention of a requirement for a senior officer to be of the opinion that the data is required, as in paragraph (a).

if it is the case that a chief superintendent's opinion is required in paragraph (b), does that mean that any time AGS seize a copy of cctv footage from a premises in the investigation of a crime, a prior formal request must be made by a chief superintendent, if the footage would likely identify the culprit?

http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/1988/en/act/pub/0025/print.html#sec8

NoQuarter

intospace wrote: »

am i misinterpreting section 8?..


http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/1988/en/act/pub/0025/print.html#sec8

Brave man using Irish Statute Book to read a 1988 Act!

http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/isbc/1988.html

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