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Here's a fun fact! If you appear to the police officer to have access or passwords, and don't give it to them, they can charge you with obstruction and jail you

Here's a fun fact! If you appear to the police officer to have access or passwords, and don't give it to them, they can charge you with obstruction and jail you for up to 5 years! So if you can't prove that you don't have the password, you're in a bit of trouble! ------------------------------------- 16 (1).(e).(v) to require any person at that place who appears to him or her to have access to or to have under his power or control the information held in any such computer or which can be accessed by the use of that computer— (I) to give to him or her any password or encryption key necessary to operate it, (II) to otherwise enable him or her to examine the information accessible by the computer in a form in which the information is visible and legible, (III) to produce the information in a form in which it can be removed and in which it is, or can be made, visible and legible 67 (2).(d) A person who fails to comply with a requirement under Head 9 (1), (2) or (3), or Head 16 (1). is guilty of an offence and is liable— (i) on summary conviction, to a class A fine or imprisonment for a term not exceeding 12 months or both, or (ii) on conviction on indictment, to a fine not exceeding €30,000 or imprisonment for a term not exceeding 5 years or both

nickthemagicman 5y ago
So they can just throw you in jail for up to 5 years under SUSPICION. Stalin called. He wants his laws back.
- dsr_ 5y ago
  Anyone here with reasonable knowledge of Irish jurisprudence? Is that a reasonable worry for someone who has an encrypted drive that they forgot the password for?
  - MertsA 5y ago
    >has an encrypted drive that they forgot the password for This scenario is indistinguishable from just simply having a chunk of random data in your possession. Let's say you decide to use shred to delete some file, any file. If you become the target of an investigation and they find a deleted file and the blocks haven't been overwritten since you ran shred they could claim that this file was an encrypted archive and jail you for 5 years for not being able to "unlock" it.
syshum 5y ago
That is a wonderful guilty until proven innocent law...
cwkoss 5y ago
I wonder if using a bot that tweets "Fuck, just forgot a very important password" about once a month would help.
kevincox 5y ago
This is the part that interests me. I always thought that the primary reason that Canada and the US has protections against self-incrimination was not some moral stance but because it is effectively impossible to prove that someone can incriminate themselves. With our current technology "I can't remember" is basically impossible to disprove. IIUC The way this works in the UK and is being proposed here for Ireland is guilty until proven innocent. You need to prove that you don't know something, which is equally impossible. Of course court rarely "proves" things. It is more aimed at "beyond a reasonable doubt" which does allow some chance for proving both ways. But I don't think that makes much difference to the fundamental issue. This point of view also cleanly solves the "unlock the phone" debate. They can't make you type your password because they can't prove that you know the password, but they can make you touch the fingerprint reader because whether or not your fingerprint unlocks the phone is something that can be tested. Of course the question of morality is important. Especially as we are sprinting towards a future where we have more and more visibility into people's brains. It would be nice to answer this question, and with the current direction that governments are moving it seems like the answer is going to be that accessing a suspect's mind is acceptable, which I have very mixed feelings about.
legutierr 5y ago
As a theoretical or as a practical matter, is there ever actually any possible way to prove that you don't know something like a password? I imagine that the way this would have to work in practice is that the prosecution would seek to prove that the accused did in fact know the password, and seek conviction on those grounds, rather than forcing the accused to refute unfounded accusations. But how it actually ends up working would depend on how the Irish legal system works. Wouldn't the presumption of innocence protect the accused from the impossibility of proving their ignorance? Wouldn't the prosecution need to produce clear evidence that the accused did in fact know a particular password (for instance, by demonstrating that they recently used the password to log into a particular system)? How badly could this actually be abused, in practice, in Ireland specifically?
- nomoreplease 5y ago
  > As a theoretical or as a practical matter, is there ever actually any possible way to prove that you don't know something like a password? No, you can’t prove a negative. Though some agencies may try lie detector tests, those have been proven fairly useless

nickthemagicman 5y ago

So they can just throw you in jail for up to 5 years under SUSPICION. Stalin called. He wants his laws back.

dsr_ 5y ago
Anyone here with reasonable knowledge of Irish jurisprudence? Is that a reasonable worry for someone who has an encrypted drive that they forgot the password for?
- MertsA 5y ago
  >has an encrypted drive that they forgot the password for This scenario is indistinguishable from just simply having a chunk of random data in your possession. Let's say you decide to use shred to delete some file, any file. If you become the target of an investigation and they find a deleted file and the blocks haven't been overwritten since you ran shred they could claim that this file was an encrypted archive and jail you for 5 years for not being able to "unlock" it.

syshum 5y ago

That is a wonderful guilty until proven innocent law...

cwkoss 5y ago

I wonder if using a bot that tweets "Fuck, just forgot a very important password" about once a month would help.

kevincox 5y ago

This is the part that interests me. I always thought that the primary reason that Canada and the US has protections against self-incrimination was not some moral stance but because it is effectively impossible to prove that someone can incriminate themselves. With our current technology "I can't remember" is basically impossible to disprove. IIUC The way this works in the UK and is being proposed here for Ireland is guilty until proven innocent. You need to prove that you don't know something, which is equally impossible. Of course court rarely "proves" things. It is more aimed at "beyond a reasonable doubt" which does allow some chance for proving both ways. But I don't think that makes much difference to the fundamental issue. This point of view also cleanly solves the "unlock the phone" debate. They can't make you type your password because they can't prove that you know the password, but they can make you touch the fingerprint reader because whether or not your fingerprint unlocks the phone is something that can be tested. Of course the question of morality is important. Especially as we are sprinting towards a future where we have more and more visibility into people's brains. It would be nice to answer this question, and with the current direction that governments are moving it seems like the answer is going to be that accessing a suspect's mind is acceptable, which I have very mixed feelings about.

legutierr 5y ago

As a theoretical or as a practical matter, is there ever actually any possible way to prove that you don't know something like a password? I imagine that the way this would have to work in practice is that the prosecution would seek to prove that the accused did in fact know the password, and seek conviction on those grounds, rather than forcing the accused to refute unfounded accusations. But how it actually ends up working would depend on how the Irish legal system works. Wouldn't the presumption of innocence protect the accused from the impossibility of proving their ignorance? Wouldn't the prosecution need to produce clear evidence that the accused did in fact know a particular password (for instance, by demonstrating that they recently used the password to log into a particular system)? How badly could this actually be abused, in practice, in Ireland specifically?

nomoreplease 5y ago
> As a theoretical or as a practical matter, is there ever actually any possible way to prove that you don't know something like a password? No, you can’t prove a negative. Though some agencies may try lie detector tests, those have been proven fairly useless