Today in Parliament

[Richard Clayton]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1


- From the first rush edition of Hansard so by tomorrow morning it may
turn out that they said something else :)

mixing up Phorm, P2P monitoring, cryptome.org and the IMP...  (and
indeed SCOPE which the Guardian wrote about yesterday, but hasn't been
on this list yet)

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld/ldtoday/02.htm

NB: URL will also be different tomorrow!

sorry so long, but it's pretty much 100% relevant to topics covered on
this list over the past few months.  Not often you can say that about
questions to a minister!

- -=-=-=-=-

Prepared: 14:51 on 17 July 2008

11.15 am

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer asked Her Majesty's Government:
What guidance they have issued to internet service providers on when and
how they can intercept their customers' website use; and what
information they have made available to the public about the privacy
issues involved.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord West of
Spithead): My Lords, the Home Office provides guidance about lawful
interception conducted under warrant for law-enforcement purposes. This
is separate from advice provided by the Department for Business,
Enterprise and Regulatory Reform on the relevant business facing
legislation. ISPs may, with the consent of the consumer, use information
about consumers' internet use for the provision of value-added services.
The Information Commissioner provides information to the public on
privacy issues.

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer: My Lords, the Minister will be
aware that my Question was prompted by the recent trials between BT and
Phorm, which were conducted without the permission of subscribers. Does
he agree that at the very least the British public must be offered an
opt-in system when such trials or the scheme itself is put online?
Furthermore, is he aware that in the US, Congress has asked that this
scheme be put on hold while the privacy implications are examined? Will
he do the same?

Lord West of Spithead: My Lords, the noble Baroness has a particular
interest in this issue and she raises some very important and good
points. Before I looked into it as a result of the Question, I certainly
had not addressed it. The Home Office, BERR and the Information
Commissioner were not aware of the two tests conducted by BT, which was
not good. I know that the Information Commissioner's Office and BERR are
now investigating that very issue, which is very appropriate. Since
then, BT has approached all three authorities about a trial with around
10,000 broadband subscribers.

The right measures are in place to look at that, but we possibly need a
test case to see whether this is interception or not. I am not clear in
my own mind on that yet and I will take away that task to see whether it
is. If it is, it will be covered by a chunk of the regulation of
investigatory powers legislation. If it is not, we will need to think
about how we will deal with it. I was aware that the Americans have an
issue with it. At the moment, the Information Commissioner has given
advice to people and we are protected.

Viscount Bridgeman: My Lords, in view of the concern expressed by the
noble Baroness about privacy, will the Government withdraw their plans
for a communications data Bill to set up a database logging every
private phone call and e-mail? There has been enormous opposition to the
idea, including that from the Information Commissioner.

Lord West of Spithead: My Lords, the noble Viscount is referring to the
IMP. It is very early days as to where we go on this and it relates to
entirely new methods of how telecommunications firms will transmit and
move data. It is also early days to see how this will impact on any
aspects of intercept. We have come to no decisions on any of that. It is
still being looked at. It is too early to make any statement.

Lord Broers: My Lords, last year, in a Science and Technology Committee
report of this House on internet security, the committee recommended
that a system of kite marks be established that identified respectable
behaviour from ISPs. That recommendation was rejected by the Government.
In a follow-up report, the noble Baroness, Lady Vadera, said that the
Government would look into this proposition. How is that going?

Lord West of Spithead: My Lords, I do not know the detail of that. I
know that in the Data Sharing Review, published in July, the Information
Commissioner, Richard Thomas, and Dr Mark Walport came up with a series
of proposals. Perhaps I may get back in writing on that point.

Lord Roberts of Llandudno: My Lords, following my noble friend Lady
Miller's Question and the use of this technology, especially by Virgin
Media, to write to 800 customers warning them about this downloading, is
it not a real cause for concern that this can be used to infringe on a
person's privacy in this way?

Lord West of Spithead: My Lords, we have to careful because very often
people do not realise how much data are used by these various firms --
they know your URLs, they know your name and they know when you log on
and log off. All of these data are there already. It is quite legal, for
example, if I go on to Google and say that I am a sailor and interested
in ships, that when my web page comes up the adverts that appear on it
tend to deal with ships and shipping. They already do this. What they
are now asking to do through Phorm is to go further. That is why we have
to monitor this issue closely. The ICO needs to get involved much more
than he is. He has issued advice on Phorm on his website and we are
keeping a close eye on this. I have made the point about whether this
reaches into the regulation of investigatory powers legislation and
whether we need a trial case to establish that. Otherwise we are
covered. I used to say to my people in the Navy that more people look at
your internet information than look at a postcard when you write it.
People tend to forget that. The data are used for quite legal purposes.

The Earl of Northesk: My Lords, can the Minister explain how the Home
Office advice to Phorm found its way onto the cryptome.org website? More
broadly, the Minister referred to IMP: can he explain what the
interaction between IMP and the SCOPE programme will be?

Lord West of Spithead: My Lords, as I said, I do not want to go down the
IMP route at the moment. We are in the very early days of deciding what
we want to do and where we are going and it would be imprudent of me to
step into that debate at the moment.

Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, what is the division between
national interest and national privacy? The net is worldwide and,
therefore, our details are available worldwide. Is there a need for
international discussion on these matters?

Lord West of Spithead: My Lords, perhaps I may first wish the noble
Baroness a happy birthday. I go back to what I said. A lot of
information is available to the internet service providers through
headers, URLs and so on. There is no doubt that the driver for Phorm is
the cut-throat market. Providers are finding it difficult to make the
profit margins they want and wish to charge advertisers more. They can
do this by promising that they will target precise adverts to people.
That is the driver to it. There are concerns about individual privacy
and so on. The noble Baroness is right: it is a worldwide system.
Internet service providers have access to such details, but they have to
put safety measures in place; and that is what the ICO is meant to
ensure happens.

- -- 
richard                                              Richard Clayton

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.         Benjamin Franklin

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: PGPsdk version 1.7.1

iQA/AwUBSH9i5ZoAxkTY1oPiEQJJjQCggdvJtjKMi4h4VvrECZ3uLfXA1lUAn17E
lOj5IGSyy0KjY6SYePTkCM3z
=g4qm
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----