Roland Perry - "is an ISP a 'Person'?"

[David Howe]

> Currently, I am considering a reply to a view which has been put to
> me:
>
> That an ISP [running a Virus Checker] is a "Person", and even though
> the examination of the emails is automated (and blind to humans)
> that the emails are necessarily being made available to the person
> of the ISP in order to be checked.
I am not sure the "body corporate" includes the machines it owns - after
all, if you own a pc as a natural person, and that pc performs an
unattended task, it isn't preassumed you did that task yourself is it?
I think this is failure to distingush tasks undertaken directly and
those undertaken by a machine owned by a person.

I can see plenty of cases where it would be inconvenient to write off
actions made by a machine directly - after all, if you programmed a
machine to kill someone, you would be guilty of a crime even if your
hands were clean - but it has already been established that, if you
extract unauthorised cash from an ATM, you aren't guilty of fraud as you
can't "fool" a machine; Surely if the initial view is true, then you are
guilty of fooling the body corporate that owns the ATM?