House of Lords Data Protection Debate

[Richard Clayton]

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Phorm seems to have been spending some time in Westminster recently:

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200708/ldhansrd/text/80612-00
09.htm#08061266000007

Hansard 12 Jun 2008 column 725

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer:

   Mass data collection and retention is not the sole domain of
   government. The private sector has been years ahead in seeing the
   commercial potential in data collection. However, collection is one
   thing but the problems arise in its retention--how is it stored, how
   is it accessed and by whom? Even the technology that I understand and
   use--the memory stick, for example--allows vast amounts of data to be
   downloaded in one place and removed to another, just as we were
   talking about in the Statement. More sophisticated is the collection
   of information by Google, for example, in developing targeted
   advertising. There are all kinds of technological advances which are
   hard to grasp.

   I was talking with the chief executive of Phorm this week who told me
   that once something is stored you have lost control over it. Phorm
   has been the subject of an interesting article in the Economist
   recently which some of your Lordships may have read. It is a company
   on the cutting edge of what can protect the public. A bit of
   controversy surrounds its work because, with its client BT, it
   intercepted people's online business without BT customers knowing.
   But Phorm is certainly correct when it says that if consumers knew
   what was actually stored they would decide to opt for true anonymity
   online. This is what Phorm is trying to develop with major
   telecommunications clients on a global scale.

- -- 
richard                                              Richard Clayton

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


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