Striking the Right Balance between Privacy and Public Protect ion

[Ian G Batten]

On Tue, 22 Oct 2002, Roland Perry wrote:

> >But I'm not in the ISP Industry.  I'm the IT Director of a manufacturing
> >company.
> 
> In RIPA terms a private CSP. The police may prefer not to make too many 
> distinctions between public and private CSPs (the difference between the 
> two is not always obvious). The DPA form is a required item for pubic 
> CSPs, and mainly for the protection of the CSP and its customers. I 
> wouldn't turn down its protection quite so easily.

I'm not turning down its protection: had they phoned up and said ``we
want this information, here's a form to cover you if something goes
wrong, let's talk'' that would be fine.  What I object to is a phone
call ``I am serving you with [not, note, providing you with] a notice
under S.29 of the Data Protection Act, please tell us XXXX.''  Moreover,
they refused to tell me _why_, because they didn't know: the request had
come via Interpol from Germany, and was a bare request with no
supporting context.  The clear implication was that I had no option.

> We have good relations, and frequent contact with, a wide range of 
> bodies that represent wider industry. They are just as worried about the 
> implications of DPA etc as is the CSP industry (just look at the OIC's 
> codes of practice for Employee/employer relations with respect to 
> monitoring, for example). We'd naturally assume they'd want to adopt the 
> same best practice, but perhaps that's a bit vain of us. But they've 
> never mentioned any objections.

OK, that's fair comment.  I'm sorry to have assumed you'd not done that.

> The main message I have is that almost everyone is touched by electronic 
> communications network law these days, whether you call yourselves an 
> ISP or not.

Of course.

> >I think the DPA notice was issued to intimidate a random company into
> >producing information, before it even occured to them to ``just ask''.
> 
> Nevertheless, "just asking" is much riskier for the interviewee. A court 
> order would probably be even more intimidating!

A court order would have been issued by a court, however.

ian