BT must be stopped from deploying technology that
uses people's personal internet communications to
make money from advertisers, the government was told this
week.
Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer, Liberal Democrat home
affairs spokeswoman, asked in the Lords for the government to delay
the rollout of interception-based online advertising until its
legality had been established under the Regulation of Investigatory
Powers Act 2000.
She told Computer Weekly that Ofcom, the Information
Commissioner, the Home Office and the Department for Business
Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) were all passing the buck.
Phorm could normalise a level of snooping not even attempted by the
Home Office's stalled
Interception Modernisation Programme. Other ministers have
praised Phorm for its enterprise.
Opponents of the Phorm deep packet inspection technology brand
it illegal under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000
(RIPA). Web inventor
Sir Tim
Berners-Lee said Phorm breached a fundamental principle of the
internet: that the lower TCP/IP stacks were as sacred as the
contents of people's written letters.
Phorm CEO Kent Ertugrul accused critics, including Sir Tim
Berners-Lee, at a Parliamentary side meeting, of "neo-Luddite
entrenchment". He claimed Phorm used technology to fix the same
privacy problem it created. US Congress has already called a halt
on interception advertising.
Richard Clayton, a Cambridge academic who has analysed Phorm's
system, said it was entirely illegal.
City police refused to prosecute BT for its Phorm trials last
year. The CPS is considering whether to allow a private
prosecution. Phorm might be permitted by section 3.3 of RIPA, which
allows interception of communications without a warrant when
necessary for the provision of a telecoms or postal service.
Read more about Phorm on the Privacy, Identity and Consent
blog:
The Phorm effect spreads >>
Phorm opens itself to independent scrutiny >>
Privacy bears its fangs for Phorm >>