Ireland’s national security and the privacy of its citizens are being left wide open to exploitation, and unless the government takes on Big Tech, the risks will only deepen.
That is the stark message from Social Democrats media spokesperson Sinéad Gibney, who has called for an urgent Dáil debate on what she describes as a systemic failure to regulate the world’s most powerful technology companies.
Deputy Gibney confirmed this week that she has written directly to Tánaiste and Defence Minister Simon Harris, pressing him to bring statements before the Dáil on what she says is an escalating national security risk.
“The Data Protection Commission has completely let us down when it comes to protecting our privacy,” Deputy Gibney said.
“It is clear as day that our regulators are wholly unable to take on Big Tech.”
The Dublin Rathdown TD (pictured above) warned that the lack of enforcement in data protection is not an abstract issue but one with direct consequences for Irish citizens, including those serving in sensitive military roles.
She pointed to investigations which have shown that data sold online can be used to track people in and out of secure military bases.
“The failure to protect our data means that those working in military settings, who may be privy to key information on national security, can be tracked to their home addresses.
“We don’t just have a duty to protect these people from malicious actors as citizens, we have a duty to protect them as people who undertake a great service for the state,” she said.
According to Deputy Gibney, the dangers are already visible and deeply alarming. “It is deeply disturbing that malicious non-state and state actors don’t even have to employ any level of espionage to access this information,” she warned.
She accused Big Tech companies of an “eagerness to sell our most intimate data for a quick buck”, adding that highly sensitive information is “freely available for sale” on online markets.
Gibney said she intends to use her position on the Oireachtas Media Committee to demand accountability directly from the companies involved. “As part of my work on the Media Committee, I will be requesting the attendance of big tech companies — including Google, Apple, Microsoft, Meta, and X — to face questioning on their collection, purchase, and sale of data,” she confirmed.
Her intervention comes just weeks after Amnesty International launched a high-profile briefing titled Breaking up with Big Tech, which called on governments worldwide to rein in the power of the industry’s dominant firms in order to safeguard human rights.
The briefing highlighted how the so-called “big five” — Alphabet (Google), Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, and Apple — have accumulated extraordinary influence over the infrastructure, services, and norms that now shape global online life.
From search engines and social media to app stores and cloud computing, Amnesty said these companies dominate digital spaces in a way that presents “serious risks” to the right to privacy, the right to non-discrimination, freedom of opinion, and access to information.
The report warned that Big Tech power is not only entrenched but also expanding into new frontiers such as artificial intelligence, where the same few players are already moving to consolidate their control.
“These few companies act as digital landlords who determine the shape and form of our online interaction,” said Hannah Storey, Advocacy and Policy Adviser on Technology and Human Rights at Amnesty International.
“Addressing this dominance is critical, not only as a matter of market fairness but as a pressing human rights issue. Breaking up these tech oligarchies will help create an online environment that is fair and just. Failure to address Big Tech dominance can have serious consequences offline, as our investigations into Facebook’s role in the Tigray war in Ethiopia and the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya in Myanmar have shown.”
Amnesty’s analysis also stressed that in many countries, participation in modern society now depends on engaging with platforms owned by these same corporations.
From communicating with friends and colleagues to applying for jobs or accessing public services, their platforms have become unavoidable.
This reliance, the organisation said, gives the companies immense power to influence public discourse and control information flows. Documented cases of content removal, inconsistent moderation, and algorithmic bias illustrate the risks of allowing just a handful of corporations to dominate the digital public sphere.
Under international human rights law, Amnesty pointed out, states have an obligation to respect, protect, and fulfil rights.
That includes taking steps to regulate private actors where corporate practices threaten those rights.
The briefing marked the first time Amnesty International has published a comprehensive human rights-based assessment of Big Tech dominance.
The organisation wrote to Meta, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Apple on 12 August 2025 with a summary of its findings.
According to Amnesty, only Meta and Microsoft responded, with their written submissions referenced in the final publication. Google, Amazon, and Apple had not replied by the time of launch.
Amnesty said its recommendations are intended to complement ongoing efforts by regulators and civil society groups around the world, including the use of competition law and market regulation to challenge monopolistic practices.
“States and competition authorities should use competition laws as part of their human rights toolbox,” the briefing said.
Governments, it added, should investigate and sanction anti-competitive behaviours that harm human rights, prevent regulatory capture, and prevent harmful monopolies from forming.
The report makes clear that this means investigating Big Tech for human rights harm linked to anti-competitive practices, breaking up companies whose monopoly power is found to damage rights, scrutinising the emerging generative AI sector to identify risks from anti-competitive behaviour, blocking mergers and acquisitions that could harm human rights, and ensuring human rights considerations are built into all anti-competition investigations and decisions.
Deputy Gibney said these warnings align with concerns in Ireland and should act as a wake-up call for government.
“The reality is that malicious actors can access information about our most sensitive personnel without needing sophisticated tools of espionage,” she said.
“That is not just a privacy issue — it is a matter of national security.”
She added that while tech companies make vast profits from collecting, packaging, and selling user data, the Irish public is left dangerously exposed.
“Our regulators have failed, our data is up for sale, and our security is compromised. The government must now show the political will to confront these corporations,” she said.
Her letter to Tánaiste Simon Harris, she noted, is intended to ensure the matter is given priority attention in the national parliament.
For Amnesty, the message is equally urgent: unless governments act quickly, the power of Big Tech will only grow stronger, and the risks to democracy and human rights will multiply.
“Breaking up with Big Tech,” the report concluded, “is not about ending innovation.
“It is about ensuring that innovation serves people, not power. And that requires governments to step up.”