UK ISPA Give Police Secret Briefing and new CR&CL(UK) report lau

[Nicholas Bohm]

At 05:28 PM 2/1/1999 GMT, Charles Lindsey wrote:
>	On Mon, 1 Feb 1999 12:43:49 GMT0BST
>	"Yaman Akdeniz" <lawya@lucs-01.novell.leeds.ac.uk> said...
>
>> Cyber-Rights & Cyber-Liberties (UK) has discovered that the Internet
>> Service Providers Association ("ISPA") last year gave a secret
>> briefing to the Association of Chief Police Officers ("ACPO") about
>> the ISP industry capabilities for the provision of information to the
>> police about their customers. This new "Who Watches the Watchmen"
>> report therefore brings into the open what your ISP can do for the
>> police with your Internet account.
>
>I don't think there was anything particularly secret about it. The
>fact that the meeting was to be held was discussed on the newsgroups
>before it happened. There are circumstances where ISPs should disclose
>evidence related to a crime in just the same way as any citizen could
>reasonably be expected to respond when a policeman knocks on the door
>and asks "Did you see ...?". The meeting was merely to discuss some
>uniform procedures to be used when such information was requested, and
>Clive Feather (who attended the meeting) gave clear assurances as to the
>sort of information Demon might or might not be prepared to divulge.

The briefing is a document, and its existence has not previously been
disclosed outside the Forum (as far as I can tell).

ISPs are not in the position of a fortuitous witness of what their
customers transmit through their services, they are handling their
customers' correspondence.  Their customers are entitled to have this
treated as private under the European Convention on Human Rights, Article
8, which now forms part of UK domestic law.

ISPs should be no more free than banks, solicitors, doctors, accountants
etc to provide information about their customers as they think fit, except
when obliged by law by a judicially-issued warrant or a court order.

Regards,

Nicholas Bohm

Salkyns, Great Canfield,
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