Labour leader Ivana Bacik has described revelations about the sale of Irish mobile phone location data as "utterly chilling" and has called on the Government to state whether it has confidence in the Data Protection Commission (DPC).

Speaking after an RTÉ Prime Time investigation found that detailed smartphone movement data is available to purchase from brokers in the digital advertising industry, Ms Bacik said the ability to trace individuals in the data through sensitive locations represented not just a breach of privacy but a threat to national security.

As part of the investigation a Prime Time team went undercover posing as a newly established data analytics firm and obtained a sample of data from a supplier said to contain the precise movements of 64,000 Irish smartphones during a two-week period earlier this year.

The data was analysed and showed how the specific movements of phones in prisons, military bases and other secure or sensitive locations could be isolated and then tracked back to residential addresses.

The data also showed the movement of phones around Leinster House.

"It was chilling watching the investigation," Ms Bacik said.

"I'm looking at that map of Leinster House, and I can see the Labour Party offices there. I can see the cluster of phones in our line of offices there. It's utterly chilling," she said.

"To know that [reporter] Kate and your team were able to track people's movements so that you could, in fact, identify people simply by use of location data, coupled with other publicly available information - utterly chilling."

Continue reading here.. https://www.rte.ie/news/primetime/2025/0918/1534241-it-was-chilling-bacik-calls-for-action-after-phone-data-expose/