Blog Post

Digital Rights Ireland would like to invite you to join us at a lecture on “Government and Privacy in the Digital Age”, given by Suw Charman, executive director of the Open Rights Group, on Friday 24th February. The lecture will be followed by a response from our very own director, TJ McIntyre.

Suw Charman is a journalist, consultant and author. The Open Rights Group is a new digital civil liberties advocacy group for the UK. Their aims are very similar to ours – to raise awareness of digital rights issues, campaign against harmful legislation, and help other digital rights organisations get their voices heard in the media.

New technology makes it ever easier for governments to monitor you. The Irish government has already introduced laws to record who you telephone, what web pages you read and even the location of your mobile phone at all times. The UK government is proposing to go even further and wants to bring in mandatory ID cards and tracking of the location of every car. Digital Rights Ireland is concerned that draconian laws in the UK will be used as an excuse to bring in similar laws in Ireland, and we have been following the UK situation closely. We look forward to hearing from Suw about UK developments and to working with her to promote privacy rights.

The talk will take place at 6.30pm on Friday 24th February, as part of the Dublin Legal Workshop series. It will take place in the Maxwell Lecture Theatre, on the first floor of the Hamilton Building (map), in Trinity College Dublin, and will be chaired by Dr. Eoin O’Dell, lecturer in law and Fellow of Trinity College Dublin. We hope to see you there!