An interesting article appeared in last weekend’s Sunday Life newspaper. In the article an ex-CIA agent, Bob Baer upon whom the movie “Syriana” was based,  claims that “Belfast and Dublin are major centres of industrial espionage” and claims Dublin is the “centre for commercial spying”.  The article continues on to claim that there is a service in Dublin where you can buy the anyone’s phone records.If true, this raises a whole lot of concerns not least the implications under Data Protection Act, both Irish and UK. The above ex-CIA agent will give more details in an upcoming interview for Highway 101 this Saturday the 7th of July on RTE Radio 1 at 9:10 a.m.It will be interesting to see if there is any substance to his claims.

Update 5th July 2007. I contacted the Data Protection Commissioner’s office regarding this issue.  They are already investigating the claims and “are taking the allegations seriously and have already began enquiring into the matter”