Simon McGarr

Solicitor at https://mcgarrsolicitors.ie. 
Director at https://datacomplianceeurope.eu 
Writes newsletter https://thegist.ie
Art https://pixelfed.social/Tupp_ed

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Last Notes

2026-05-22 06:51:45 GMT

Exploring new depths to the word Misnomer, the UK’s Equality and Human Rights Commission has issued a loathsome set of rules targeting trans people.
In response, a reminder that in doing so the U.K. breaches EU data protection law & its own adequacy decision.
https://www.thegist.ie/the-gist-trans-rights-are-data-rights/

2026-05-04 23:24:13 GMT

“75% of far right commentary about Ireland comes from outside Ireland”
https://www.thegist.ie/the-gist-sunshine-and-lollipops/
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodonie/media_attachments/files/116/518/882/519/043/332/original/aaa24ec961c8cead.jpeg

2026-03-08 11:34:17 GMT

"Which takes us to Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth, a man who achieves the rare feat of being both eager to show off his hard muscles and yet somehow also personifying erectile dysfunction."
https://www.thegist.ie/the-gist-the-very-hungry-killerpillar/
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodonie/media_attachments/files/116/193/336/377/966/775/original/5da174fafa077e26.png

2026-01-08 09:15:30 GMT

Yesterday, after a mild query by some parents, my daughter’s primary school sent out a notice to say they were going to stop using their X account for comms.
It’s as simple as that. There are plenty of alternatives.
But even if there weren’t you can’t contribute to that.
And it can be as simple as
asking to prompt a change.

2025-06-16 07:31:05 GMT

Hello!
I have a happy favour to ask.
Last year, I had a US intern working with us and she now is looking for help that you- good reader of this account- could give.
(She needs academic survey participants)
Check out her flyer below, click the link, and please RT
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeoeSLDlqLa0ExKvSc-GbCZkDanagb2Idi-_bta95ngjMphNA/viewform
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodonie/media_attachments/files/114/691/870/595/715/683/original/8673c5c52daf22e7.jpeg

2025-06-14 07:07:02 GMT

A reminder regarding the government of Iran. you do not, under any circumstances, “gotta hand it to them”.

2025-05-28 09:59:53 GMT

This wider action is not about porn. This is about building a system of tracking Internet use of everyone, adults or children.
>>
“Commission opens investigations to safeguard minors from pornographic content under the Digital Services Act”
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_25_1339

2025-05-25 13:20:03 GMT

There is an open letter on BlueSky moderation practices as they apply to Gazans which I was invited to sign.
I have been feeling pretty helpless so I read the letter. It was very balanced and reasonable. The asks are not- as I saw them being misrepresented as immediately- to allow anyone who says they are in Gaza to post anything.

2025-05-23 09:12:47 GMT

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@nprofile…x759 Do they make you do the percentage breakdown of income / types of law ?
That is my least favourite bit.

2025-05-12 22:37:10 GMT

Tell everyone you know in the Netherlands to hurry up and sign.
https://eliitin-some.fi/@miiamustang/114495332170190839

2025-03-28 22:04:14 GMT

This is the maddest report I can remember reading.
Cops armed with tasers broke down the door of the quakers meeting house, *because they felt they might be involved in protests*
20 cops v 6 quaker women.
https://www.quaker.org.uk/news-and-events/news/quakers-condemn-police-raid-on-westminster-meeting-house
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodonie/media_attachments/files/114/242/319/085/448/116/original/dcf0d06cd4002484.jpeg

2025-03-16 16:18:25 GMT

Squirrel looks to Daniel O’Connell’s round tower , of an evening.
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodonie/media_attachments/files/114/173/011/824/739/328/original/ffc09eb1144e185f.jpeg

2025-03-16 16:05:50 GMT

You may keep your clovers, three or four leafed.
Here’s what Trifolium Occidentale actually looks like.
Shamrock.
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodonie/media_attachments/files/114/172/962/363/978/662/original/55143a1f7523ad21.jpeg

2025-03-15 21:39:58 GMT

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@nprofile…x759 Do you do accents?

2025-03-14 09:07:45 GMT

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Para 32 sets out the test for any Member State to apply when obtaining and then recording the gender of a person.
It hangs on the purpose for which it is collected. If the purpose is to identify the person, then it should
“refer to that person’s lived gender identity” not that assigned at birth
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodonie/media_attachments/files/114/159/993/810/216/570/original/5b2c7bd0ee149b8b.jpeg

2025-03-12 08:36:46 GMT

The U.K. are implementing the sorts of Age Verification policy that our Commisiun na Mean has passed for the EU, but suspended coming into force until Nov 2025.
Guess what? It is not proving a great idea.
https://social.treehouse.systems/@dee/114148507626961466

2025-03-10 08:31:13 GMT

“Tesla, despite his frantic recent claims otherwise, is a car company whose CEO has been successfully persuading people not to buy their cars.”
https://www.thegist.ie/the-gist-a-confederacy-of-dunces/

2025-02-02 10:20:19 GMT

Dublin Bay Sky
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodonie/media_attachments/files/113/933/786/707/989/504/original/cd9872d9f7938e11.jpeg

2025-02-01 20:55:43 GMT

Darkly, actually starting a tariff-based trade war may be the US’ best long-term survival move, in that it could trigger a mass turn against *economically illiterate* fascists.
See: Liz Truss.
Long-term it could be nice if fascism generally was unattractive. But baby steps, I suppose.

2025-01-29 10:18:39 GMT

If OpenAI would like to substantiate their complaint that Deepseek stole all their hard-collected Other People’s Work, they need only publish the full corpus of the work they collected and point to the bits they used.
For some reason, they have not rushed to do so.

2025-01-25 21:16:23 GMT

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@nprofile…x759 I’d just check the statues in the vaulted basement if I were you.
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodonie/media_attachments/files/113/891/067/770/134/030/original/6e077d121c20ac6b.jpeg

2025-01-10 10:21:16 GMT

The problem with the Tory government being a decades-long parade of the grotesque is that we forget that those parade floats ground real people under their wheels.
https://mastodon.online/@Geri/113802980538184936

2025-01-01 19:12:11 GMT

The Dept of Symbolism putting out some hack work.
https://mastodon.social/@BNONews/113754283764179834

2024-12-19 07:26:46 GMT

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Looking forward to hearing of OpenAI’s response to the EU’s data protection regulators telling it to delete the ChatGPT models.

2024-12-19 07:25:59 GMT

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I’d say the list of potential regulator actions to deliver consequences for that unlawful processing of personal data as part of training data would chill the blood of any AI company.
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodonie/media_attachments/files/113/678/297/050/903/927/original/7708060599521f94.jpeg

2024-12-19 07:25:05 GMT

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You can read the post for the nuts and bolts but two main things jump out at me from this.
1) No large language model currently existing seems likely to have met the test for lawful processing of personal data.
2) The regulators plan on breaking these black boxes open to prove it/ find out

2024-12-19 07:18:37 GMT

Nobody asked for it, but I did it anyway.
A quick overview of the effect of yesterday’s EDPB Opinion (No 28/2024 for those keeping count) on the consequences for AI models built unlawfully using personal data.
https://www.mcgarrsolicitors.ie/2024/12/18/overview-on-edpb-opinion-28-2024-on-personal-data-in-ai-models/

2024-12-18 20:47:07 GMT

The possibility of my going to Charlotte, South Carolina in my middle future for a few days has emerged.
Please share literally any and all thoughts, knowledge, experience or good food places for this location if you are hiding them in your brains.

2024-12-16 22:37:28 GMT

Coffee sizing choices at the BounceBack Cafe on Thomas Street.
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodonie/media_attachments/files/113/664/894/061/819/882/original/1d5a798653dd54b1.jpeg

2024-11-29 09:20:12 GMT

Today is polling day in #GE24
Six constituencies have a risk of electing a far right headbanger to the last seat
To avoid, I recommend No 1 to
Dublin Bay North: John Lyons
Dublin Central: Gary Gannon
Cavan Monaghan: Pauline Tully
Dublin NW: Rory Hearn
Cork N Central: Mick Barry
Galway West: pic
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodonie/media_attachments/files/113/565/499/932/606/956/original/50abb625624a166a.jpeg

2024-11-24 20:17:01 GMT

“voters see something about Harris in that video. He walks away from the woman when she questions his personal sense of his own virtue.
You can't talk to him unless you first acknowledge he is a good man. It is a low-key Trumpian trait in its self-centering.”
https://www.thegist.ie/campaign-gist-2/

2024-11-16 20:08:17 GMT

Hello fellow humans!
I have four tickets to go to see the famously good Talking Heads concert movie
Stop Making Sense
In the Lighthouse Cinema in Smithfield at 10.15pm
Tonight!
And I’m giving them away.
Maybe to you?

2024-11-13 17:57:34 GMT

Not arguing with the thrust of the post, but the suborning of the US Supreme Court means that *nothing* is illegal if the executive branch doesn’t want it to be.
https://mastodon.xyz/@hughrawlinson/113475192054162433

2024-11-13 12:13:34 GMT

Look, to save you a lot of bother, every single story about Trump’s government appointments wil be just this, for months.
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodonie/media_attachments/files/113/475/584/830/882/161/original/174281b1252ec3e7.jpeg

2024-11-12 09:54:20 GMT

This will reward and appall in equal measure.
https://fediscience.org/@micefearboggis/113441611585885681

2024-11-11 14:23:13 GMT

Remember, you don’t have to read any of this wall of white noise and bullshit the winning faction will just keep pumping out.
It will be miserable to be professionally obliged to recount it.
But you, a normal human, have no requirement to pay attention to any of it.
Don’t.
You’ll feel better and the world will be a little better too.
https://mastodon.social/@verge/113464758177257909

2024-11-09 22:04:58 GMT

“I think we should be looking at deportation more rather than free legal aid and prison, which some actually find quite comfortable”
I see. Thank you for illuminating your views, SF Integration Spokesperson. Deportation without legal representation. Got it.
https://www.thejournal.ie/sinn-fein-immigration-2-6537275-Nov2024/

2024-11-09 03:09:09 GMT

Who says there’s no innovation these days?
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodonie/media_attachments/files/113/450/794/667/477/845/original/02b612402a34884e.png

2024-09-11 11:29:45 GMT

The Govt has no plans for the 13 billion Apple windfall because the officialdom refused to acknowledge it acted wrongly and so would not allow plans where it lost that argument to be addressed.
https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2024/0911/1469499-reaction-to-apple-tax-ruling/

2024-09-01 09:43:36 GMT

“there are two far-reaching planned codes-regulating on internet speech coming soon from Ireland.
Taken together, they may upturn many of the assumptions we have learned about using the Internet, not just in Ireland but also- as the Irish Regulations have effect on the huge tech platforms based here- across the whole EU.”
https://www.thegist.ie/the-gist-here-come-irelands-speech-police/

2024-08-31 21:19:28 GMT

Meanwhile, BlueSky is Brazil’s site now, everyone else just lives in it.
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodonie/media_attachments/files/113/058/720/218/632/768/original/28ab8117b94a0bcb.jpeg

2024-08-27 20:28:26 GMT

This tiger absolutely intended eating my son.
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodonie/media_attachments/files/113/035/870/349/958/985/original/d9f66fb377de39c7.jpeg

2024-08-20 08:06:29 GMT

I would like to apologise for cycling and never having received a driving licence in the first place.
I am a burden on you all, as the Irish State’s absolutely car-brained latest messaging has informed me.
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodonie/media_attachments/files/112/993/316/497/292/479/original/92a0386f2e69d19d.jpeg

2024-08-18 10:11:29 GMT

Will someone please write the thing on the U.K. riots having been planned and modelled on the Dublin Nov riot because of their success at spooking the political system into anti-immigration rhetoric?
I do not want to. Let someone who is very good write it and then I can read it and nod and point at it.

2024-08-18 10:08:02 GMT

I recently discovered that this was not an “old timey movie camera” emoji and I have had to do a lot of reassessments of my correspondence as a result.
🫂

2024-08-17 15:01:20 GMT

“Both greasy strivers like Rufo and also your more warped and willful elected officials on the right all understand their jobs this way and behave accordingly. If they seem somehow unlike actual people, if they are too big and too mad and too much, it is because they are now full-time content creators, and so actually not quite like actual people at all.”
On Republicans becoming a party of content creators, not politics.
https://defector.com/men-on-the-verge-of-a-nervous-breakdown

2024-08-11 23:18:12 GMT

I have bad news about newspaper websites.
https://mastodon.social/@kcarruthers/112945934731330654

2024-08-02 21:24:44 GMT

Meanwhile, when it comes to US firms…
https://mastodon.social/@verge/112894499916418266
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodonie/media_attachments/files/112/894/533/933/999/194/original/e2931e9244bc4fc7.jpeg

2024-08-01 20:08:07 GMT

Classic Gist: The Irish State announced its new plan to build a porn preference register for most of the EU, amongst other mad things. This is the Gist.
https://www.thegist.ie/the-gist-wtf-commission/

2024-07-05 21:08:16 GMT

Oh. A disappointing way to find out I wasn’t picked.
https://flipboard.social/@NewsDesk/112735759658034295

2024-07-04 21:53:26 GMT

I like that the U.K. governments issue an official list of stooges to be rewarded as they are thrown out of office.
Keeps everything nice and clear.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/dissolution-peerages-2024

2024-06-27 20:21:18 GMT

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@npub198t…hasj Clothes are very prone to this, I have noticed in recent years.

2024-06-24 06:31:47 GMT

This is an excellent piece by @npub1smd…655a in the Irish Times on the (designed) political effect of personal abuse.
https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2024/06/24/the-vile-abuse-of-eamon-ryan-has-chilling-effect-on-climate-action/

2024-06-22 17:43:37 GMT

Florida Cancels Culture
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/21/arts/ron-desantis-veto-arts-funding-florida.html

2024-06-22 08:41:06 GMT

I have conscious memory of this change in Dublin’s weather since 1981 (when I started noticing things like weather).
It is, in case we ever lose focus on it, the main story of our lives- the backdrop against all the things we’ve seen and done and will see and do in the future.
This is bad.
#climatechange
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodonie/media_attachments/files/112/659/376/518/715/915/original/55283abeaf907c69.png

2024-06-21 22:04:53 GMT

I have read this, and am unpersuaded by this explanation. https://flipboard.social/@TechDesk/112656785055031817

2024-06-21 06:46:28 GMT

Reddit’s positions were no-hopers. Tumblr wasn’t likely, but had some chance. But both missed the point that the definition used is hugely broad. Not only are they both captured but potentially scores more are too.
Including(whisper it) this place.
>>Reddit and Tumblr challenges against media regulator over online safety code dismissed
https://www.thejournal.ie/high-court-dismiss-reddit-tumblr-challenges-online-safety-code-6415273-Jun2024/

2024-06-19 10:18:54 GMT

Interesting from an Irish perspective. Only a few years since Minister O’Gorman argued in favour of sealing records of Mother and Baby homes for 30 years.
https://mastodon.world/@article19/112642558677876865

2024-06-18 18:28:29 GMT

If you have ever found yourself kicking your heels, at a loss for a decades long collection of Irish writing, a reminder that Tuppenceworth.ie is still online, over twenty years since it first appeared in some hand made html pages assembled using Dreamweaver.
From 2005:
https://www.tuppenceworth.ie/blog/2005/04/25/latte-drinkers-and-racial-demagogues/

2024-06-13 22:41:48 GMT

New Gist: A Safe Pair of Hands
On the distractions of Just So stories about election results. And perhaps suggesting some uncomfortably basic alternatives.
This is the Gist:
https://www.thegist.ie/the-gist-a-safe-pair-of-hands/
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodonie/media_attachments/files/112/611/721/202/285/950/original/3ee33aa56775ca0d.jpeg

2024-06-11 19:35:38 GMT

Fellow spends years mocking and griping about people who ride bikes, only to find his political career determined by Green Party transfers.
PR-STV, the democratic Karma machine.

2024-06-09 20:49:59 GMT

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@npub1sfl…gczt That is lovely

2024-05-29 19:35:46 GMT

I guess it’s only a matter of time before ChatGPT starts to tell us it can be legal to kill children.
https://mastodon.social/@verge/112525718401042184

2024-05-28 10:17:53 GMT

https://labyrinth.zone/objects/f119f172-d61c-4c0c-ac5f-59148a4aecd5
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodonie/media_attachments/files/112/518/199/303/612/632/original/b325874b2fcc8dd6.jpeg

2024-05-23 20:30:24 GMT

An abstract painting
I called it Untitled 1
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodonie/media_attachments/files/112/492/296/276/530/144/original/08e1ef7a64873e05.jpeg

2024-05-23 20:23:33 GMT

A drawing I did of my wife
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodonie/media_attachments/files/112/492/269/311/874/583/original/a31f608c58c9eb49.jpeg

2024-05-23 08:01:18 GMT

This report says the U.K. data protection regulator is asking Microsoft questions (oh boy, are there questions) about their little spy camera that collects a record of your PC use. The product, called Recall, was announced as an exciting new part of Windows.
But Ireland’s DPC is the EU-wide regulator for Microsoft.
I want to hear from them, now, on what they are doing about this.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpwwqp6nx14o

2024-05-22 17:38:31 GMT

I see.
“Ms Foley said she would consider bringing forward new laws that would ban sales to under-13s if a voluntary scheme is not successful.”
Thought experiment: how many *not on contract* (as no contracts with minors already) smartphones are currently *purchased by* children aged 12 and under?
This is just wind.
https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/politics/arid-41400511.html

2024-05-21 09:17:57 GMT

Interesting piece of administrative information from TCD.
Poorly managed Institutions react to challenges with amazingly predictable emotional responses, following a pretty reliable model of threats, bluster and then collapse.
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodonie/media_attachments/files/112/478/327/453/762/367/original/d6fbea36c93f04e9.jpeg

2024-05-19 00:48:08 GMT

Saturday, sunshine and Holy Communions have combined to bring me multiple simultaneous competing neighbour back garden karaokes.

2024-05-09 07:17:29 GMT

#saturdaymug https://mastodon.social/@guncelawits/112401563460982442

2024-04-24 20:44:08 GMT

Ghost, the software system the Gist runs on has said it is going to build ActivityPub in, letting all you #mastodaoine subscribe to it directly here, and even comment. They even say they will, somehow, make people’s paid content work.
This is cracking news.
Aside: Leave Substack. If you don’t like Ghost, ButtonDown are also going to Federate. Pick one!
Ghost announcement:
https://activitypub.ghost.org

2024-04-20 13:28:41 GMT

You can tell the Old Testement is the product of a desert people, because when they tried to imagine the end of the world they went with “rained for forty days and forty nights”, which in Ireland is just called Spring.

2023-09-04 21:52:18 GMT

Please tell me the funniest book you ever read. I want actual wheezing tears of laughter, loss of the power of speech, ugly gasping for breath funny.
Nominate your choice, please.

2023-09-04 21:47:29 GMT

My son told me a concerning fact he learned today in school.
Because iron is the final fusion state of a star, extremely massive stars can end up as balls of iron compressed down tiny, but still iron.
I am very concerned about these lumps of iron.
What if someone makes a car out of one and it just sinks into the earth’s core, while everything else is pulled by gravity into the hole after it?
Worrying.

2023-09-04 00:20:06 GMT

Uh, I just looked in the window there and there sure are a lot of Nazis in that new Nazi bar around the corner.
Remember when it had snugs and a fire and you could have a chat?
Lotta nazis now. A. Lot.

2023-08-29 17:16:55 GMT

It is a strange quirk of linguistic history that grown men can be (and almost exclusively are) also terrible infants.

2023-08-24 18:16:02 GMT

Today I had a good idea, and then did the idea. All in one go. Seamless.

2023-08-23 23:36:16 GMT

It appears that none of the dishes have washed themselves in my absence.

2023-08-21 05:55:29 GMT

Well, I’m awake, but I want to stress that I’m not happy about any of it.

2023-08-20 12:03:43 GMT

Hello there!
During the lockdown, people were gripped by twin impulses- to introduce some novelty into their greyscale existences and to buy something.
Please show me your favourite Lockdown purchase you would never have made otherwise, but which still brings you joy.
I bought these felt slippers with a rubber sole and they are the best things ever. These are the Grimes everlasting Boots, applied to slippers.
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodonie/media_attachments/files/110/921/843/835/337/748/original/aa7844c648389a47.jpeg

2023-08-19 23:49:43 GMT

In case you didn’t know, the Met Police in London looked to get a cut of all uses of police boxes in Doctor Who merch.
The U.K. Patent Office found against them, on the basis that, by now, a police box was just the TARDIS, and the Met were no Time Lords.
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodonie/media_attachments/files/110/918/957/692/881/754/original/3f1c5f5295174d3a.jpeg

2023-08-18 08:44:14 GMT

I have been increasingly using the “Local” stream as my main one- it gives me the flow of public comments from Mastodon.ie and it tends to have more jokes than the “Home” one, which was lamentably full of US news recently.

2023-08-09 11:06:32 GMT

I'm quoted here by TechCrunch on Zoom's EU law problems in justifying their claim that they can use personal data gathered from users of their service to train AI models.
https://techcrunch.com/2023/08/08/zoom-data-mining-for-ai-terms-gdpr-eprivacy/
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodonie/media_attachments/files/110/859/329/454/374/552/original/8b7feef9fddcea00.png

2023-03-17 09:35:42 GMT

It is a truth universally acknowledged that when you are on a zoom to a senior executive at a multinational, wearing a suit and tie and projecting supreme professionalism with your carefully chosen background, the Ice Cream Van will pull up outside your house and loudly play its Call Of The 99 to a confused client.