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EU threatens Government over Phorm trials
Posted on 30 Oct 2009 at 08:11
The EU is a step closer to taking the UK to court, over its failure to protect citizen's privacy in the wake of BT's secret Phorm trials.
According to the EU, it has moved to the second stage of privacy infringement proceedings against the UK government - which has been charged with failing to protect the confidentiality of its citizens' electronic communications, such as emails and internet surfing.
The charges relate to the secret trials of Phorm's behavioural advertising technology on thousands of BT customers between 2006 and 2007.
The Information Commissioner's Office declined to take action over the incident, which was subsequently picked up by the EU.
"People's privacy and the integrity of their personal data in the digital world is not only an important matter, it is a fundamental right, protected by European law," says EU telecoms commissioner Viviane Reding.
I call on UK authorities to change their national laws to ensure British citizens fully benefit from the safeguards set out in EU law
"I therefore call on the UK authorities to change their national laws to ensure that British citizens fully benefit from the safeguards set out in EU law concerning confidentiality of electronic communications."
Reding claims the UK's lack of an independent national authority to supervise interception of communications and hear complaints breaks the ePrivacy and Data Protection Directives.
She also criticises the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA), which allows those intercepting communications to assume consent if they have "reasonable grounds for believing" it is given. As Reding, notes, under EU privacy laws consent must be "freely given specific and informed indication of a person’s wishes".
The EU has sent a letter of complaint to the Government, which now has two months to respond. If that response fails to satisfy Reding, the case can be referred to the European Court of Justice, which has the power to force the Government to change laws and impose fines for non-compliance.
The Home Office responded to the charges with the following statement. "We are firmly committed to protecting users' privacy and data. We are considering the Commission's letter and will respond in due course."
Author: Stuart Turton
Frightening potential
Not a lot of people know this, but the UK actually has a greater capacity to monitor and censor the internet than countries like Iran and the PRC do.
Britain has a body called the IWF which has the power to block about 97% of all UK ISPs from seeing any website that they choose with no explanation, no notification and with no official oversight. This is significantly more advanced than the DNS poisoning technique that is used in most other countries which is patch at best in many places. Combine this with phorm and you have a super censorship and tracking tool that could have frightening implications for privacy and free speech.
If the UK government went bad (OK, got worse) it could lock the internet down in a terrifyingly short period of time and it would know who browsed to what when and from where without the need for a court order.
Scary stuff.
By Perfectblue97 on 30 Oct 2009 
This over-surveillance is ALSO a threat to Business
As I have said before, it is most likely that large International Companies, are becoming increasingly aware that all of their Business Transmissions through the UK are at risk, and important contracts may well be in jeopardy due to interception.
There is also the fact that ‘UK’s Big Brother’ may find he has an even ‘Bigger Brother’ watching him. This surveillance and Data Collection Technology may already be being used by Counter Intelligence Services from other counties.
As already disclosed many times via the media, the Data the Government does have is very loosely guarded. Laptops left in public places, CD discs, DVD Discs, and Pen Drives left in public places.
To cap it all they still want to store more of our private and personal data.
British National Security is becoming a bad joke at our expense.
Signed Carl Barron Chairman of agpcuk
By Carl_Barron on 31 Oct 2009
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