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

[Clare Wardle]

Nicholas Bohm wrote
>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.

Moreover if in the course of disclosing the messages to a third party such as the police,they disclose personal data, which almost inevitably they will, they need to check that the request to disclose meets the specific criteria of a statutory ability to request information appropriate to the requesting party, and that this statutory power is allowable under the Data Protection Directive, or the ISP will be able to be sued by the people whose personal data it is.  It is not open to ISPs or anyone else to decide to give personal data relating to other people willy nilly without authorisation.  Fishing expeditions are definitely out.

Clare Wardle

My views are my own and not necessarily those of my employer or colleagues