GDPR and Irish politics.

StupidLikeAFox

FrancieBrady wrote: »

Not sure why you are so anxious to protect the DPC from scrutiny. But anyway.

So do you think the law is too strict or it isn't being enforced enough?

Here's the long and the short of it, and where journalists are currently digging.

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=116985072&postcount=4494

This is the synopsis so far:

SF took a a copy of the electoral register from each constituency and made a digital copy of it, or got a 3rd party to do so. The electoral register is used by loads of marketing companies, State agencies, utility providers etc so all cool so far. I'd be disappointed if other political parties hadn't done so as well. Kudos to SF.

SF then used data extracted from Facebook groups, surveys, and targetted advertising to augment the electoral register with information on potential SF voters based on likes, comments, and all the usual shíte you actually agree to when you sign up for Facebook and other 'social media' services.

It's not great, but we all live in a world of targetted advertising, and I'd be surprised if that wasn't taking place with other parties to a lesser extent.

SF host the Abú database in Frankfurt. A nothing burger tbh. It's all very cloudy out there, and their 'instances' moved from London to Frankfurt in line with what most companies started doing as Brexit became a reality. They could have hosted in Ireland, but were using the Linode cloud service which doesn't have a presence in Ireland. Not worried about this at all.

Now we get down to the 'brass tacks' of the story. The Abú system is available to party activists. Do all party activists have access to all records despite who they are? Did the Data Protection Officer in SF ensure data was only made available to those who need to have access to it? Should someone in Donegal have access to the records of someone in Cork, and for what reasons?

Have those records been made available to activists outside the Irish State, and for what reason?

Finally, does the Abú database hold additional information on people above-and-beyond what was gathered using the electoral register and social media activity?

A simple example. A SF activist visited the door of John Q Taxpayer. John was watching Coronation Street, and was pissed off with having his door knocked upon, despite once having liked a post about housing that Eoin O Broin posted on Facebook. John told them he wasn't interested, and closed the door. What data was uploaded to the Abú system about that interaction?

Was there free text entered in the Abú system about that?

If so, then there's an enormous issue around privacy, and Philip Ryan is about to strike gold as a journalist.

The Serbia thing isn't going away either. It's nothing to do with Serbia, but rather what might be happening with the SF 'online army'.

I like this Joe Biden fella I must say. Slates being lifted.

CrookedJack

FrancieBrady wrote: »

I made the point that if successive governments have not resourced the DPC properly it's a bit rich to be attaching importance to breaches now.

Much more important is the breaches outside the political sphere I would imagine.

I really have to admire that your argument basically amounts to "FFFG didn't resource the DPC enough to preemptively force SF not to break GDPR rules, so let's blame them"

That really is next level deflection - an impressive and marketable ability.

jmcc

Any comment from FG about that hidden Facebook tracking link on its website and the disappearing websites of its representatives?

Shame how Philip Ryan managed to land all the political parties in the crap over GDPR.

Regards...jmcc

FrancieBrady

CrookedJack wrote: »

I really have to admire that your argument basically amounts to "FFFG didn't resource the DPC enough to preemptively force SF not to break GDPR rules, so let's blame them"

That really is next level deflection - an impressive and marketable ability.

I think a general discussion of the issues was warranted here that was not possible on the shinner thread where I said from the get go that there may be issues for SF and if they are they should be fined. I haven't left or run way from that thread I have merely opened the discussion up to include all the issues including the resourcing of the DPC which as we have seen from the factually based material presented is and has been an issue.

And forgive me for annoying your sensitivities, if that is somebody's fault then the finger of blame points at the government for their portion of it.

expectationlost

the Open Rights group did Subject access requests to UK political parties What we’ve learned from asking political parties: Who do you think we are? https://www.openrightsgroup.org/blog/what-weve-learned-from-asking-political-parties-who-do-you-think-we-are/ found a lot of the info to be wrong, and something interesting side stepping of the rules

AndrewJRenko

[Deleted User] wrote: »

If so, then there's an enormous issue around privacy, and Philip Ryan is about to strike gold as a journalist. [/I]

Not sure that I agree with your conclusion that scraping information off Facebook is not an issue.

Either way, the enormity of the issue largely depends on whether they got the person's consent.

They probably didn't, but if they did, the whole thing is a non issue.

beakerjoe

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

Not sure that I agree with your conclusion that scraping information off Facebook is not an issue.

Either way, the enormity of the issue largely depends on whether they got the person's consent.

They probably didn't, but if they did, the whole thing is a non issue.

It might not be an issue, RE the scraping of data from FB. Consent is not the only basis for processing. The most likely would have another lawful basis to rely upon.

jmcc

This thread has gone very quiet. Weren't the parties before the Oireachtas Housing Committee in the last few days?

Regards...jmcc

blanch152

Deleted User wrote: »

Here's the long and the short of it, and where journalists are currently digging.

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=116985072&postcount=4494

This is the synopsis so far:

SF took a a copy of the electoral register from each constituency and made a digital copy of it, or got a 3rd party to do so. The electoral register is used by loads of marketing companies, State agencies, utility providers etc so all cool so far. I'd be disappointed if other political parties hadn't done so as well. Kudos to SF.

SF then used data extracted from Facebook groups, surveys, and targetted advertising to augment the electoral register with information on potential SF voters based on likes, comments, and all the usual shíte you actually agree to when you sign up for Facebook and other 'social media' services.

It's not great, but we all live in a world of targetted advertising, and I'd be surprised if that wasn't taking place with other parties to a lesser extent.

SF host the Abú database in Frankfurt. A nothing burger tbh. It's all very cloudy out there, and their 'instances' moved from London to Frankfurt in line with what most companies started doing as Brexit became a reality. They could have hosted in Ireland, but were using the Linode cloud service which doesn't have a presence in Ireland. Not worried about this at all.

Now we get down to the 'brass tacks' of the story. The Abú system is available to party activists. Do all party activists have access to all records despite who they are? Did the Data Protection Officer in SF ensure data was only made available to those who need to have access to it? Should someone in Donegal have access to the records of someone in Cork, and for what reasons?

Have those records been made available to activists outside the Irish State, and for what reason?

Finally, does the Abú database hold additional information on people above-and-beyond what was gathered using the electoral register and social media activity?

A simple example. A SF activist visited the door of John Q Taxpayer. John was watching Coronation Street, and was pissed off with having his door knocked upon, despite once having liked a post about housing that Eoin O Broin posted on Facebook. John told them he wasn't interested, and closed the door. What data was uploaded to the Abú system about that interaction?

Was there free text entered in the Abú system about that?

If so, then there's an enormous issue around privacy, and Philip Ryan is about to strike gold as a journalist.

The bit in bold. Sinn Fein can't do that unless they have the consent of the individual to do it, or they buy the information from someone like Facebook who have the consent to do it.

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/politics/sinn-feins-abu-voter-database-is-taken-offlineagain-40368643.html

"The party shut the original portal for the Abú system after details of its existence were published by the Irish Independent. Sinn Féin said it closed down the password-protected website containing the names, addresses and perceived voting intentions of millions of voters as a “precautionary security measure”.

Sinn Féin health spokesperson David Cullinane later said the Abú system had been “compromised” when the website domain was published."

This would be front-page news if it wasn't for Arlene and the virus. I didn't know that Cullinane said the system had been compromised. That gives rise to even more questions. If SF have been compiling personal information about voting intentions and that information has been compromised, the sh!tshow is only getting bigger. This will run and run.

blanch152

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

Not sure that I agree with your conclusion that scraping information off Facebook is not an issue.

Either way, the enormity of the issue largely depends on whether they got the person's consent.

They probably didn't, but if they did, the whole thing is a non issue.

The scraping of information off Facebook is an issue if they didn't have permission from Facebook or the consent of the individuals to do so. It is difficult to think of any other legal basis for them to do it.

Of course, they could pay Facebook for access to the information as other advertisers do, but that opens another can or worms for Sinn Fein.

expectationlost

https://twitter.com/GeneKerrigan/status/1391350846445719552 via https://www.rte.ie/archives/2017/0524/877557-the-role-of-the-tallymen/ https://www.independent.ie/opinion/comment/data-harvesting-is-it-worse-when-sinn-fein-do-it-40403213.html

McAuliffe took part in her first election count in 1977 when Jack Lynch’s Fianna Fail had a landslide win. A nurse by trade, she took over the job of inputting all the tallies into the computer in the late 1980s, having completed a weekend course in Excel. https://www.businesspost.ie/election2020/tally-ho-the-secret-to-calling-the-election-2020-votes-a15df638

https://www.businesspost.ie/election2020/tally-ho-the-secret-to-calling-the-election-2020-votes-a15df638

just add canvassing records

ps https://www.independent.ie/business/m50-directors-unmasked-26473547.html https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/senator-at-funeral-on-day-alleged-bribe-given-25932446.html https://electionsireland.org/candidate.cfm?ID=4580

expectationlost

In total, we now have over one million constituents registered on our system. Based on the last (2012) census population statistics which placed the population at 4.589 million, this means that 22%, or slightly over one in five Irish citizens, is attached to a canvasser account on our system as a registered occupant.

http://press.vconnecta.com/ecanvasser-in-the-2014-local-elections-some-key-stats/

blanch152

expectationlost wrote: »

https://twitter.com/GeneKerrigan/status/1391350846445719552 via https://www.rte.ie/archives/2017/0524/877557-the-role-of-the-tallymen/ https://www.independent.ie/opinion/comment/data-harvesting-is-it-worse-when-sinn-fein-do-it-40403213.html
https://www.businesspost.ie/election2020/tally-ho-the-secret-to-calling-the-election-2020-votes-a15df638

just add canvassing records

ps https://www.independent.ie/business/m50-directors-unmasked-26473547.html https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/senator-at-funeral-on-day-alleged-bribe-given-25932446.html https://electionsireland.org/candidate.cfm?ID=4580

I haven't read his column as it is behind a paywall, but are you seriously suggesting that Gene Kerrigan is comparing the computerising of anonymised tally records without any personal information with the Abu database which was building a personal individualised profile of every voter in the country???

If he was comparing the two, he is probably the journalist most ignorant of GDPR in the whole country.

expectationlost

blanch152 wrote: »

I haven't read his column as it is behind a paywall, but are you seriously suggesting that Gene Kerrigan is comparing the computerising of anonymised tally records without any personal information with the Abu database which was building a personal individualised profile of every voter in the country???

If he was comparing the two, he is probably the journalist most ignorant of GDPR in the whole country.

no Im suggesting that if you add this tallying data to canvassing records, surveys etc it is comparable.

ETA: read what _I_ wrote before responding please

blanch152

expectationlost wrote: »

no Im suggesting that if you add this tallying data to canvassing records, surveys etc it is comparable.

How? Explain to me how anonymised tallying data compares to the Abu database, in simple GDPR terms.

beakerjoe

blanch152 wrote: »

How? Explain to me how anonymised tallying data compares to the Abu database, in simple GDPR terms.

If its anonymised its no longer personal data right?

blanch152

beakerjoe wrote: »

If its anonymised its no longer personal data right?

Correct, and tallyman data is completely anonymised. I am still extremely curious as to how Gene Kerrigan compares tallyman data to the Abu database.

FrancieBrady

expectationlost wrote: »

https://www.independent.ie/opinion/comment/data-harvesting-is-it-worse-when-sinn-fein-do-it-40403213.html

I can see now after reading Kerrigan's description, why my local FF TD at the time (early 80's) was able to say, he could tell you how every house voted on the street where I lived.

FrancieBrady

FrancieBrady wrote: »

I can see now after reading Kerrigan's description, why my local FF TD at the time (early 80's) was able to say, he could tell you how every house voted on the street where I lived.

Stop digging, Francis. In the 80’s we had a smaller population, 2 utterly dominant parties, strong family associations with parties, and far less movement of people to live in cities.

Trying to make some association between then and SF’s sinister Abú system is stupid tbh. Kerrigan has always been a crank (a Stickie as well, Francie). A real pointing out the problems and extreme socialism is the solution type.

Clutching at straws is not a good look.

blanch152

FrancieBrady wrote: »

I can see now after reading Kerrigan's description, why my local FF TD at the time (early 80's) was able to say, he could tell you how every house voted on the street where I lived.

Just got access to Kerrigan's article. As I suspected, it confuses the tallyman process with the abuse by Sinn Fein of GDPR.

Tallymen can tell you how many votes each candidate got from a particular housing estate. That is generalised anonymised data. Absolutely nothing wrong with that, as individuals are not identified. Guessing which people in a housing estate voted in a particular way as a result is sailing close to the wind all right, but it falls well short of a national computerised database with every SF activist having access (you remember you claimed it couldn't be secret as a result of such access) to every voter's personal information.

Kerrigan is a clown, confusing anecdotal stories from the 1980s with real threats to modern democracy.

FrancieBrady

Deleted User wrote: »

Stop digging, Francis. In the 80’s we had a smaller population, 2 utterly dominant parties, strong family associations with parties, and far less movement of people to live in cities.

Trying to make some association between then and SF’s sinister Abú system is stupid tbh. Kerrigan has always been a crank (a Stickie as well, Francie). A real pointing out the problems and extreme socialism is the solution type.

Clutching at straws is not a good look.

It's an article on data harvesting. He clearly makes the link whether you want to accept it or not, that by collating and collecting over a number of years/elections, voters can be identified.

Is that going on? Well my local TD seemed to be saying it back in the 80's.

Let's see how it all plays out and what is revealed as this is looked into on a cross party basis.

AndrewJRenko

blanch152 wrote: »

Just got access to Kerrigan's article. As I suspected, it confuses the tallyman process with the abuse by Sinn Fein of GDPR.

Tallymen can tell you how many votes each candidate got from a particular housing estate. That is generalised anonymised data. Absolutely nothing wrong with that, as individuals are not identified. Guessing which people in a housing estate voted in a particular way as a result is sailing close to the wind all right, but it falls well short of a national computerised database with every SF activist having access (you remember you claimed it couldn't be secret as a result of such access) to every voter's personal information.

Kerrigan is a clown, confusing anecdotal stories from the 1980s with real threats to modern democracy.

It would want to be a fairly big housing estate. A box is usually 500-1000 votes, so it would usually go beyond a single estate.

There are few people that will carry around tally results from last four elections for the 50-100 boxes in their area.

They may have good local knowledge from years of canvassing. Perhaps SF were disciplined enough to have each canvasser logging the results of each canvass, but that's fairly difficult to achieve.

FrancieBrady wrote: »

I can see now after reading Kerrigan's description, why my local FF TD at the time (early 80's) was able to say, he could tell you how every house voted on the street where I lived.

Politicos love to exaggerate their local knowledge.


They could overlay tally results on canvass outcomes, but that's not easy to do either, and constituency or ward changes complicate things.

FrancieBrady

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

Politicos love to exaggerate their local knowledge.


They could overlay tally results on canvass outcomes, but that's not easy to do either, and constituency or ward changes complicate things.

No doubt about that. But collecting data to 'attempt' it, is the issue is it not?
The DPC won't care about the accuracy of the predictions made using the data.

blanch152

blanch152 wrote: »

Just got access to Kerrigan's article. As I suspected, it confuses the tallyman process with the abuse by Sinn Fein of GDPR.

Tallymen can tell you how many votes each candidate got from a particular housing estate. That is generalised anonymised data. Absolutely nothing wrong with that, as individuals are not identified. Guessing which people in a housing estate voted in a particular way as a result is sailing close to the wind all right, but it falls well short of a national computerised database with every SF activist having access (you remember you claimed it couldn't be secret as a result of such access) to every voter's personal information.

Tally men just count the preferences on the balllots as the boxes are opened and thrown on the table and sorted for counting, and later as they're counted, to get an idea how the party performed.

They've no idea who voted for whom, all they can tell if their candidate polled strongly/poorly in that area.

StupidLikeAFox

FrancieBrady wrote: »

It's an article on data harvesting. He clearly makes the link whether you want to accept it or not, that by collating and collecting over a number of years/elections, voters can be identified.

Is that going on? Well my local TD seemed to be saying it back in the 80's.

Let's see how it all plays out and what is revealed as this is looked into on a cross party basis.

Cmon Francie, I know you won't give an inch when it comes to SF but you must appreciate the difference between a local lad having an opinion on your voting intentions, based on how your street voted, and a national organisation maintaining a central database on each person on the electoral register?

FrancieBrady

StupidLikeAFox wrote: »

Cmon Francie, I know you won't give an inch when it comes to SF but you must appreciate the difference between a local lad having an opinion on your voting intentions, based on how your street voted, and a national organisation maintaining a central database on each person on the electoral register?

FFS, will you guys read threads?

I have said repeatedly that if SF have broken regs here they desreve to be fined for it.

The discussion has quickly widened out to what are they all up to with regard to data. We have seen websites taken down and we have an all party investigation.

The topic is GDPR and Irish politics. If you wish to confine it to SF there is a thread for that too.

beakerjoe

FrancieBrady wrote: »

FFS, will you guys read threads?

I have said repeatedly that if SF have broken regs here they desreve to be fined for it.

The discussion has quickly widened out to what are they all up to with regard to data. We have seen websites taken down and we have an all party investigation.

The topic is GDPR and Irish politics. If you wish to confine it to SF there is a thread for that too.

What regulations have the broken that they deserve to be fined for?

This is all a storm in a teacup.

FrancieBrady

beakerjoe wrote: »

What regulations have the broken that they deserve to be fined for?

This is all a storm in a teacup.

If they have.

Some have decided they have.