Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 9 October 2013

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality

Data Protection Package: Discussion with the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner

10:15 am

Mr. Billy Hawkes:

No. To be fair, the dark net is a matter for the police and outside our remit. Again, it is one of the things that can be viewed as positive or negative. As I understand it, one use of the dark net is where political activists in countries where such activity is suppressed would use it to try to operate anonymously, which one might regard as positive. The negative side is where it is used by people like child pornographers and so on to pass their data. This is very much within the area of police activity and, again, shades into the earlier discussion of what is the correct balance in the extent to which law enforcement agencies should have access to people's data. It is not an easy one.

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