PEDIDOS A FACEBOOK EN IRLANDA

Irish privacy watchdog calls for Facebook changes

The Irish data protection commissioner has recommended widespread changes to improve privacy on Facebook.

They include making its terms and conditions clearer and offering users greater control over how their data is used on the site.

The findings are particularly significant because Facebook Ireland was given responsibility for all non-US and Canadian data in September 2010.

Facebook has six months to implement the changes.

Commissioner Billy Hawkes will conduct a formal review of its progress in July.

Commenting on the report, he said: "This was a challenging engagement both for my office and for Facebook Ireland. The audit has found a positive approach and commitment on the part of FB-I [Facebook Ireland] to respecting the privacy rights of its users."

The review was conducted partly in response to complaints about Facebook's data and partly as routine assessment of firm conducted by the commission.

Transparency

Facebook welcomed the review, saying: "We are pleased that the report demonstrates how Facebook adheres to European data protection principles and complies with Irish law.

"Of course, the report highlights some areas where we can improve and reach best practice."

The report suggested widespread changes, including:

• a mechanism for users to make informed choices about how their information is used and shared on the site, including in relation to third party apps
• increased transparency and controls over how personal data is used for advertising purposes
• transparency and control for users via the provision of all personal data held to them on request and as part of their everyday interaction with the site

Advertising controls

One of the first changes users will notice in the new year will be prominent notices informing them about the facial recognition tag which suggests names for labelling photos. Users will be offered the chance to disable it.

The report recognised that Facebook was entitled to use customer data for advertising purposes, but requested that the control allowing people to decide whether advertising was linked to profile information be made more prominent.

One of the main complaints against Facebook came from a group of Austrian students. They launched the lobby group Europe v Facebook following requests to see all the data Facebook had stored on them. After receiving CDs full of personal information, they claimed Facebook created "shadow profiles" on users. The audit found no evidence of this.

"People have put two and two together and made 12. They think that we have all this data so therefore we must be creating profiles out of it. The audit found we were not doing that kind of shadow profiling," said Richard Allen, director of public policy for Facebook in Europe.

Mr Allan denied that the recommendations represented a victory for the Europe v Facebook group.

"This is business as usual for us. Individuals raise concerns and take them to the regulatory authorities and we have a conversation with them. It is right that individuals raise concerns and that we respond to them," he said.

Facebook is changing the way that people can see the data it has stored on them, following 40,000 such requests in recent months. Instead of sending people a CD with all the details on it, users can now download an information tool or look at an activity log.

'Darwinian network'

"These kind of arrangements are more secure, more readily available and can be delivered at no cost," said Mr Allan, who said that it would still allow users to access all the information stored on them.

Deputy Irish data commissioner Gary Davis, who conducted the audit, said that the "Darwinian nature" of Facebook, where new features are constantly being introduced, meant it needed "robust mechanisms" to ensure privacy kept pace with new tools.

The review is the latest in a series of privacy investigations into the social networking giant. Last month the US Federal Trade Commission said the social network giant had engaged in "unfair and deceptive" practices over changes made to its privacy settings in 2009.

In a blog post at the time, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said the company had made a "bunch of mistakes".

But he added that this had often overshadowed the good work that the social networking site, which has more than 800 million users, had done.

Other changes demanded by Ireland's data protection commissioner include:

• the deletion of information held on users and non-users via what are known as social plug-ins, and more generally the deletion of data held from user interactions with the site much sooner than at present
• an update to its data use policy/privacy policy to take account of recommendations as to where the information provided to users could be further improved
• an additional form of notification for users in relation to facial recognition/"tag suggest" that, it is considered, will ensure Facebook Ireland is meeting best practice in this area from an Irish law perspective
• an enhanced ability for users to control tagging and posting on other user profiles
• an enhanced ability for users to control their addition to groups by friends

OBAMA EN EUROPA - Y DESPUÉS

Antes de matar a Osama Bin Laden sin reconocerle el “debido proceso legal” proclamado por las Enmiendas Quinta (1791) y Catorceava (1867) de la Constitución y sin dar noticia de esta intervención armada ni pedir consentimiento alguno al gobierno de Pakistán, Barack Hussein Obama ya había entrado en contradicción flagrante con una promesa clave de su campaña electoral de 2008: cerrar ese campo de concentración de sospechosos maltratados por sus guardianes que seguía siendo Guantánamo.

Eliminado Bin Laden, Dick Cheney, que fue vicepresidente de Bush, afirmó con razón que Guantánamo había sido clave para el éxito de la operación, por emplear “técnicas mejoradas” de interrogación que permitían sacar de los detenidos en las cárceles de Guantánamo y Afganistán todo lo que sabían y no decían. Obama consiguió así, gracias a estos deplorables recursos proporcionados por Bush, un triunfo inmenso que le fue negado a su predecesor. No lo habria logrado si hubiera permanecido fiel a una de sus promesas electorales aclamadas por sus partidarios durante la campaña.

Con esta nueva aureola de vengador vencedor que liberó al mundo de un terrorista sin fronteras, Obama apuró su octavo viaje a Europa, apenas seis días, según un programa asaz variado. Primero, la nota familiar, una visita al pueblo irlandés de donde procede una parte de su ancestro materno. Después, su homenaje al Reino Unido: “la nuestra no es sólo una relación especial. Es una relación esencial para nosotros y para el mundo.” En el Parlamento de Westminster, Obama y Cameron coincidieron en una comparación -muy discutible- de las revueltas norafricanas con lo ocurrido en Europa del Este tras la caída del Muro de Berlín. Después, los dos se trasladaron a Deauville, Mayo 26, para participar en la reunión del G8 focalizada precisamente en Oriente Medio. A pocos días de la crítica que le dedicó Helmut Schmidt en Die Zeit, Obama confirmó una vez más su línea dura: “EEUU repetiría un raíd como el de Bin Laden”. El G8 desplegó a su vez su cadena de amenazas militares. Para exigir la renuncia de Gadafi, que ahora también reclama Rusia.”¡Vamos a terminar el trabajo!”, sentenció Obama. Sin negociación previa con el régimen, exigió una vez más Sarkozy. Pero también –¡ya era hora! - para advertir a El Asad que habrá sanciones si en Siria no cesa en la violencia. Alemania creará una fuerza de intervención rápida de 30.000 hombres, anunció el Ministro de Defensa de Maizière, apoyado por el SPD y Los Verdes. Habrá también una inmensa ayuda monetaria a Túnez y Egipto, consideradas como las dos vanguardias en la oleada de revueltas árabes. Mientras miles de egipcios siguen reuniéndose en la plaza Tahir, Mubarak y sus dos hijos serán juzgados por las muertes de rebeldes: el país se divide en sus actitudes ante el depuesto líder y sus hijos. Y por último, Obama visitó Polonia, para tranquilizarla en medio de sus tensiones con Rusia.

¿Qué reacciones de sus bases cosechará este Obama al iniciar su nueva campaña presidencial? ¿Qué nuevos tipos de militantes reclutará? ¿Quién será su adversario republicano?

IRLANDA Y ALSACIA EN LA GENEALOGÍA MATERNA

Obama empieza su gira europea por un pueblo irlandés, de donde procedía uno de sus antepasados maternos, de profesión zapatero.

Podría seguir este itinerario sentimental visitando un pueblo alsaciano, de donde procedía otro de sus antepasados maternos. Con lo cual aprovecharía el doble ancestro alsaciano, alemán y francés según las componendas entre Alemania y Francia. Y, precisamente ahora, el referente alsaciano se beneficiaría de un plus mediático-publicitario: alsaciano es el antepasado de Strauss Kahn. Alsaciano judío. No sé si el de Obama era judío, protestante o católico romano.

EAMON DE VALERA: BIOGRAFÍA CORREGIDA

28 March 2011 Last updated at 08:28 GMT

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How De Valera asked UK to smear IRA chief Sean Russell

By Mike ThomsonPresenter, Document, Radio 4

Broadgate in Coventry was bombed by the IRA in August 1939

Newly released documents suggest that the man who helped secure an independent Ireland, Eamon de Valera, covertly co-operated with Britain to crush the IRA.

The papers reveal that De Valera, whose entire cabinet in the late 1930s were former IRA members, asked London to help smear the organisation's chief of staff as a communist agent.

Tensions came to a head when the IRA began bombing Britain in early 1939.

Under what was called the Sabotage or S-Plan, British cities including London, Manchester, Birmingham and Coventry were targeted by IRA explosive teams.

In one attack on Coventry five people died and 70 more were injured.

'Old enemy'

Dublin, which is recorded as being "seriously disturbed" by the IRA bombings, reacted even more forcefully than London.

Continue reading the main story

Eamon de Valera

• Born in 1882 in New York and sent to live in Ireland aged two, after death of his father
• Played leading role in 1916 Easter Rising against Britain, for which he was imprisoned
• Left Sinn Fein in 1926 to set up Fianna Fail party
• Head of government from 1932 to 1948 - and for two more stints in the 1950s
• Oversaw Ireland's policy of neutrality in WWII

De Valera's government regarded IRA attacks against Britain as a threat to the Irish state itself.

With war looking likely, De Valera was determined that Ireland should remain neutral.

He knew that a hard rump of Republicans would never countenance being allied to the "old enemy" Britain, and such an alliance could push Ireland into another bloody civil war.

But he also knew that, if his country was seen as a threat, London might decide to invade.

It seems hard to believe that this was the same militant Republican who had been at the forefront of the Easter Rising against British rule in 1916.

After becoming prime minister of the Irish Free State, he outlawed the IRA in 1936, and his commitment to pursuing Irish unification by constitutional means led him to part company with many of his former comrades-in-arms.

Yet few would have guessed that he would soon be accepting British help to crush them.

Fear of 'martyrs'

In 1939, as the documents show, De Valera's government asked for assistance from London in smearing IRA chief of staff Sean Russell as a communist agent:

Continue reading the main story

Document

• Newly released British secret memo

"It is believed that some 10 or 12 years ago, he was in Soviet pay as an agitator; If there is any information which could be made available to show that this was the case, or that at the present time he is in receipt of pay from foreign sources, it would be of the greatest possible assistance to the Dublin authorities in dealing with him since it would practically eliminate the risk of him being treated as a patriotic martyr…."

Dublin also called on London to consult them on sentences imposed on IRA members convicted of the bombings in Britain.

De Valera was worried that those executed at British hands might become martyrs at home. But he had no such qualms over those convicted of bombings in Ireland.

In fact, De Valera's government executed more IRA members than Britain and even borrowed the UK's most famous executioner, Albert Pierrepoint, to hang one of them.

During the war, Dublin went on to intern more than 1,500 IRA suspects, and several died while on hunger strike in Irish jails.

Help from Hitler

As a result, the IRA began to look to Nazi Germany for help.

Not long after the first bombs had gone off in Britain, Sean Russell and IRA head of explosives Jim O'Donovan, went to Berlin for a meeting with German military intelligence, the Abwehr.

Jim O'Donovan made several trips to Germany

At that point, Hitler refused to fund their S-Plan bombing campaign because of fears of provoking conflict with Britain. But, once war had broken out, he did agree to send money, transmitters and spies to Ireland.

Many of the latter proved somewhat inept.

In July 1940, three German spies - one of them an Indian national - capsized before landing in Ireland.

Two of them could not speak English and the Indian agent stood out in rural Ireland. After finally making it ashore, one asked a policeman if they were anywhere near Cork.

All three were promptly arrested.

Yet despite all this, Jim O'Donovan was falling under Hitler's spell. In fact, during the early years of the war, he became increasingly interested in Nazi ideology and visited Germany three times.

Speaking for the first time about his father's work with the Nazis, Gerard O'Donovan - who was a young boy during the conflict - told me how he still remembers one regular wartime visitor to their home in Dublin:

"There was a room off the dining room where there was a radio transmitter. A man used to come every Saturday and send messages to Germany on that radio… and we children used to call (him) Mr Saturday Night."

Jim O'Donovan died in 1979 without, according to those who knew him, any regrets about his involvement with the Nazis.

Sean Russell, who cared little for Nazi ideology, died aboard a German U-boat bound for Ireland in August 1940.

'Pristine' image

The S-Plan was ultimately a failure.

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

What, one wonders, might the consequences have been for Eamon de Valera, had his people known then what has come out now? ”

After just over a year, it ground to a halt, largely due to a string of botched attacks, lack of funds and the crackdowns against the IRA in London and Dublin.

Some in Ireland may well have suspected at that time that their government was secretly co-operating closely with Britain, a country many still considered their enemy.

Yet only now can such suspicions be confirmed.

What, one wonders, might the consequences have been for Eamon de Valera, had his people known then what has come out now?

Donnacha Obeachain is a lecturer in Politics at Dublin City University and the author of a book on Fianna Fail and Irish Republicanism:

"It certainly would have undermined De Valera's image of being the pristine Republican leader who had heroically and unstintingly challenged the British. I think it would have been difficult for him to present that image, and it's something that he treasured.

"The publicity of such co-operation would be very detrimental to De Valera's image and therefore his electoral prospects."

As it was, Prime Minister (Taoiseach) Eamon de Valera continued a long and successful career in Irish politics.

He won eight elections over the period of the 1930s, 40s and 50s and ended his career as president of Ireland between 1959 and 1973, when - at the age of 90 - he was the oldest head of state in the world.

As for the IRA, it was a spent force for the next 20 years until it came back with another bombing campaign - this time targeted at Northern Ireland.

Document will be broadcast on Monday 28 March at 2000 BST on BBC Radio 4 and will also be available via the BBC iPlayer .