Marie Daly of Covington & Burling writes: On Jul 22, 2021, the Irish Joint Committee on Justice (“Committee“) published a report that included a series of recommendations on the work of the Irish Data Protection Commission (“DPC“). The Committee, made up of 14 politicians from across the political spectrum and drawn from both the Dáil (the elected…
Category: Non-U.S.
Genetic papers containing data from China’s ethnic minorities draw fire
Dennis Normile reports: When Yves Moreau, a bioinformatician at KU Leuven in Belgium, noticed a 2017 paper in Human Genetics that described the “male genetic landscape of China” based on a set of almost 38,000 Y-STR sequences, he saw a red flag. Y-STR stands for Y-chromosomal short tandem repeat polymorphism, bits of repetitive DNA often used in…
UK: Activist raided by police after downloading London property firm’s ‘confidential’ meeting minutes from Google Search
Gareth Corfield reports: A man who viewed documents online for a controversial London property development and shared them on social media was raided by police after developers claimed there had been a break-in to their systems. The raid by four Metropolitan Police constables took place after Southwark campaigner Robert Hutchinson was reportedly accused of illegally…
UK: Revealed: anti-terror snooping law used for fly-tippers and parking
Yohannes Lowe reports: Councils have used controversial surveillance legislation to combat “low-level” offences, such as the misuse of blue badge parking permits, fly-tipping and benefit fraud, an Observer investigation has found. The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (Ripa) 2000 gives certain public bodies the right – under limited circumstances – to conduct surveillance activities, including for crime prevention and national…