Sir, – Further to "O'Sullivan confirms Gmail use on Garda business" (November 22nd), it is laughable to think Garda sources are confident that the commissioner's Gmail communications are secure given that we know Gmail is included in the US National Security Agency (NSA) Prism programme, as exposed by whistleblower Edward Snowden in 2013. – Yours, etc,
JONATHAN CUMMINS,
Munich.
Sir, – With regard to the Garda commissioner’s use of Gmail, we are told that An Garda Síochána is satisfied that “the commissioner’s systems are secure and there is no evidence that they have ever been compromised”.
So, it would seem from past reports of Garda rank-and-file threats of industrial action by not using their own personal mobile devices during work, and now this incident higher up the Garda food chain, that our police force not only has no effective Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) IT policy, but is also in the business of providing customer testimonials by default for the security of commercial cloud services, in this case Google’s.
Where do people think data gets stored? In the ether?
Perhaps the commissioner was under the impression that the “G” in Gmail stood for “Garda”? – Yours, etc,
ULTAN Ó BROIN,
Florence.
Sir, – I wonder if the password is 999? – Yours, etc,
MARY BYRNE,
Dublin 8.