@tjmcintyre.com
I'm an associate professor of law at University College Dublin specialising in technology law (mostly privacy/data protection/cybercrime/fundamental rights), consultant solicitor with FP Logue LLP, and chair of Digital Rights Ireland.
“In a dozen instances, misreads by Flock's automated license plate readers, or a lack of verification by officers, resulted in people who hadn't committed crimes being stopped at gunpoint, sent to jail, or mauled by a police dog, among other outcomes.”
Hungary’s lawyers on hearing that their suit against the Court of Justice will be heard by the Court of Justice.
The Hungarian govt. is suing the EU court for fining them for breaking EU law (read that twice)
Their three legal arguments:
1. It’s unfair
2. They don’t like it
3. Give me a break
But sure... US law enforcement (or any other country's, for that matter) would be a perfectly safe custodian of (i) a back door to encrypted communications, (ii) escrowed keys, (iii) pre-emptive, consentless client-side scanning.
Do Not Legislate Systemic Vulnerabilities Into Consumer Products!
Her trip to Ireland was ruined by this one question?? Gee, I wonder why…
Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach of FT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email licensing@ft.com to buy additional rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the gift article service. More information can be found at https://help.ft.com/faq/gifting-and-sharing-an-article/what-is-a-gift-article/. https://www.ft.com/content/09fa5c20-2c8f-4f41-9d91-c78476eaac20 Drone strikes on Amazon Web Services facilities this week in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain highlight the vulnerability of cloud facilities — prominent symbols of US tech power in the region and hard to defend against air attack. Fars News Agency, an outlet affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, said on Thursday that Iran targeted Amazon and Microsoft facilities in recent drone strikes. Experts say Amazon’s facilities were likely targeted by Iran. Microsoft said it had not experienced any outages in the region. The strikes mark what is believed to be the world’s first military attack against the US “hyperscalers” that dominate the global cloud computing market. That could create a chilling effect on the UAE and Saudi Arabia’s plans to spend billions of dollars on local AI infrastructure in the coming years, a crucial plank of the oil-rich states’ efforts to diversify their economies. “The Iranians view data centres as part of the conflict,” said Matt Pearl, a director at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think-tank.
Iran acknowledges they are targeting AWS and Azure data centres. "The Iranians view data centres as part of the conflict,” said Matt Pearl, a director at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
*This activity is very much like firing up the DOGE engines, and going out patrolling for "DEI words," and then cutting budgets
*Linguistic vibe-policing, it's the way forward
Some people showcase intelligence not by discussion but by playing a game called "find the flaw". It is a very easy game but irresistible to junior paper reviewers, critical theorists, and terminal posters. If you know who's playing, it explains everything from reviewer 2 to "you hate waffles".
Indeed, the Al phone has caused an uproar in China. Within days, many of China's biggest apps blocked the Doubao phone. They saw it as a serious risk to data security. Built into the operating system of the phone itself, it has a kind of master key that gives the embedded Al agent blanket access to the screen, all app content, and the ability to tap or click as if it were a user. Critics dubbed the agent a "burglar" with "god's fingertips" increasing risks of malicious input and intrusion attacks by criminal actors.
What happens when you let an AI have access to everything on your phone? Absolutely fascinating article: www.lawfaremedia.org/article/chin...
AWS is telling Gulf customers to evacuate their cloud workloads due to Iran's military activity damaging regional infrastructure. When hyperscale cloud providers start issuing geopolitical evacuation notices, that's a new category of systemic risk.
Screen shot of text from the end of an email that reads: If you want, I can also write a much sharper version (still legally safe but far more cutting) that will really land with him and his solicitors.
Pro tip: if you're going to send someone a nonsense letter that you hope uses enough serious sounding "legal" language to be taken seriously, you should probably make sure you delete the bit at the end where ChatGPT offers to write a different version lol
Reply of @ec.europa.eu to my letter of March '25 (!) Re transatlantic data transfers. It is crystal clear that even at this stage of transatlantic relations, the Commission flatly refuses to ensure protection of European citizens’ rights, but relies instead on the “pretence of compliance” policy
There two things that come to mind on this. Firstly, Ireland needs to consider the threat of this happening here in a future conflict given the data centres located here. And secondly, there are more effective ways to disrupt a data centre than with cyber
High praise from one of the best in the business, thank you! Read the full piece here: theintercept.com/2026/03/05/k...
Leading case about privacy on the net.
AG finds that a requirement for surveillance cameras monitoring areas where fishing boats handle/discard fish is a proportionate restriction of rights to privacy and data protection. Interesting discussion of standard of review, privacy issues in workplace, and safeguards (especially anonymisation).
I understand lack of bandwidth and it being a minor sideshow relative to the Gulf, but I do think it’s been surprisingly quickly glossed over that the current holder of the presidency of the EU council is under active drone threat. You might think that would be of interest to other small countries 🤔
Just as with Snowden US tech companies are (unlike in the US case) apparently unbothered by European surveillance concerns about their AI systems - but this time its more serious IMO. These tools have incredible data on us, and can be used for manipulation more effectively than X's algorithm.
Meta Ray-Bans are a Cybertruck you wear on your face.
www.garbageday.email/p/meta-ray-b...
Ukraine taking a robust approach to enforcing sanctions.
Firefighter/Paramedics from Tara Street assisted with the delivery of a baby boy on Monday morning.
#DidYouKnow our maternity kits on our ambulance now come with a special Dublin Fire Brigade hat for newborns.
This afternoon the AI Committee was told An Garda Síochána "is transitioning from a traditional style of police service to a data-led, digitally-enabled organisation."
Part of that transition is presumably a bill before the Oireachtas today - to give gardai the power to use "biometric analysis" 👇
All you need is the willingness to follow orders; being actually smart or good at the law is irrelevant.
US Border Patrol admits using Real-Time Bidding (RTB) data to track people's movements.
The failure to enforce against the RTB data breach at the heart of online advertising is very, very dangerous.
Big scoop by @josephcox.bsky.social @404media.co!
www.404media.co/cbp-tapped-i...
I have seen a lot of cursed stuff in my time in academia but this is among the *most* cursed.
Grammarly is generating miniature LLMs based on academic work so that users can have their writing ‘reviewed’ by experts like David Abulafia, who died less than two months ago.
whether war, vaccines, or critical infrastructure there is contingent of the right that seems to believe that their security from the worst things that happen is some kind of metaphysical principle rather than the result of specific historical processes that could've gone otherwise and still could
