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

[Peter Fairbrother]

Dave Howe wrote:

>> It makes content available for the person who runs the machine to
>> use, even if he doesn't read it. The words "see" and "read" do not
>> appear in Ch1 of RIPA.
> An automated virus scanner (one that deletes) could not under any
> circumstances make content available; if anything, it removes content from
> those who might legitimately expect to receive it...

:)

>> Incidently, on reflection(!), I was wrong about echo-cancelling, it's
>> not interception - there is no act of modification, interference or
>> monitoring "as to" (which I take to mean both "with the effect of"
>> and "intended to") make content available.
> but this is of course true of memiming and/or virus scanning. both modify
> only the message stream - they do not redirect portions of it outside of
> that stream to any third party, or store locally portions of that stream in
> a manner that could "make them available" to an operator unless that storage
> would take place anyhow.

What is memiming? 

If you _can_ use content, to eg feed a scanner, it's available to you. To
use. For interception to occur, you don't have to have read it, you don't
even have to have used it, it just has to be available for you to use.

If content has been made available to you by one of the actions in ss.2(2),
interception has occurred (bar a few exceptions).

You can't usually scan without content being available to you, to use in the
scan, or without one of those actions occurring. Scanning is therefore
interception (again, bar a few exceptions).


> Quarantine (as normally set up) could well be
> interception, but it would be borderline; ok, it involves storing for later
> processing, but so does mail spooling (in cases of non-delivery).

In the cases of popmail, webmail, and spooling, email is in the PCSP's
system as part of the normal operation of the communications system, and
there is no interception. No modification "as to..." has happened.


-- Peter Fairbrother