They all make us feel good. But the reality is that the proliferation of vaguely addressed online petitions means that their value is very questionable and if it stops you from sending a personal email or a real postcard to the party you want to influence they they are unhelpful.

However they are a super database gathering exercise which is why when you sign any petition with Amnesty Ireland you will note that there is a pre-ticked box allowing them to use your data in future.

While this practice is frowned on by those concerned with our data protection and privacy rights, Amnesty Ireland has no issue will collecting this information.

Because of this type of data collection abuse, it has been been necessary to introduce  the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). This  will come into force on the 25th May 2018, replacing the existing data protection framework under the EU Data Protection Directive.

This will have the effect of banning this type of ‘data grab’ and any names collected up to that date which were derived from pre-ticked boxes can no longer be used.