Is virus scanning interception?

[Richard D G Cox]

On 17 Jul 2002 19:47:14, Charles Lindsey <chl@clw.cs.man.ac.uk> wrote:

> it informs me, the human, that the test found whatever it was
> looking for. But it does not make any content available to me.

If the test was - 'does the item contain the words "hijack" and "flight"'
and the test indicates "yes" then the test has made (some of) the content
available to you.  If that is NOT considered interception, then we should
examine the implications of that fact in the light of the mechanisms that
various agencies can use in having machines sample content and report on
the results of those "tests" ... as the actions so triggered can include
more intrusive surveillance - possibly if the content test then allows it
to be said that there are "reasonable grounds for believing that ..." etc

> Employing someone who cannot read, for example (or a dog).

So it is not interception if such a letter is opened by a blind person?
Would you vary that view if the blind person had been trained in the use
of a photocopier with Braille buttons?  In the obvious extension of the
latter case, who (if anyone) would have committed an offence against the
Act?  The blind person, or the person who makes the content available to
him/her?  These otherwise-laughable situations are cogent here, given the
ways that were used to "get round" IOCA.


-- 
Richard Cox