In October, Dr Maria Helen Murphy was honoured to deliver the closing remarks at the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) and Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ) Conference on 'Police Surveillance North and South.' The conference convened key stakeholders to discuss the evolution and future of covert policing across Ireland, emphasizing the implications for human rights. Dr Murphy synthesized the day’s discussions and offered some reflections on the trajectory of police surveillance and its governance.
The event featured a distinguished line-up of speakers, including Baroness Nuala O’Loan, the first Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland (1999-2007); Professor David Kaye, former UN Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression (2014-2020); Dr Abeba Birhane, Senior Fellow in Trustworthy AI at the Mozilla Foundation; Professor Marie Breen-Smyth, Independent Reviewer of Justice and Security (Northern Ireland) Act 2007 and Independent Reviewer of National Security Arrangements for Northern Ireland; and Jonathan Hall KC, the UK’s Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation.
Also in October, Dr Murphy was invited to speak at a symposium organised by Dr Maria Grazia Porcedda on 'Cybersecurity, Privacy and Data Protection in the EU: (How) can we have it all?' Dr Murphy was invited to speak on the panel 'The Law-case Law Nexus in Cybersecurity, Privacy and Data Protection'. She was joined on the panel by Ronan Lupton, SC (Chair to Alto, Law Library, UCD) and Simon Garr (Solicitor, Mc Garr Solicitors, Director, Data Compliance Europe, Law Society of Ireland) which was chaired by Eoin Delap (Irish Centre for European Law, TCD).