Child abuse unit paying for data

[Roland Perry]

In article <6F3BFFDE-74E5-4C88-A0D4-EB006D541487@batten.eu.org>, Ian 
Batten <igb@batten.eu.org> writes
>Jim Gamble's also essentially arguing that this sort of crime is 
>different because it's happening on the Internet and the ISPs are in 
>business to deliver the Internet and therefore it's their problem.
>
>> He said: "Where it's any type of ordinary criminal offence, then of 
>>course we need to pay. If we are diverting them from their core 
>>business we need to recompense them for that."
>> But he feels it is unacceptable when working to prevent harm to 
>>children in an online area created by the ISPs themselves.

I think Jim's conflating (and he won't be the first or last person) the 
role of connectivity ISPs and that of content providers.

I'll be the first to say that content providers should take more 
responsibility (see the following BBC interview with my good lady wife 
yesterday), although the cross-border nature if the Internet makes that 
difficult sometimes (or maybe people should use local sites where 
redress might be easier?)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/womanshour/02/2009_03_tue.shtml

>> "Their core business is the online environment, bringing customers to 
>>that environment, and where customers coming to that area commit a 
>>crime, it's ridiculous that we would have to pay to successfully 
>>investigate that," he said.

The only major activity I can think of (putting British Transport Police 
and airports aside for a moment) where the "industry" pays to police its 
"content" is football matches. But even then, I don't think they'd pay 
for the costs of an ongoing police investigation, beyond mere crowd 
control, if it turned out criminals were active at a match.

But that goes well beyond what the article on the website says, where he 
seemed to be happy to pay to get details of perpetrators, but not to get 
details of victims.

>Which is fine so far as it goes, but it's hard to see how the same 
>logic doesn't apply to EBay fraud,  VoIP junk calling and any other 
>case where a real world crime is facilitated by the net.

I wonder what he does once he's identified the victims? Does he write to 
the parents. Would it be acceptable for the site owner to write instead?
-- 
Roland Perry