Consultation on change to RIP interception definition

[Ian Mason]

On 11 Nov 2010, at 20:47, Ian Batten wrote:

>
> On 11 Nov 2010, at 20:24, Mary Hawking wrote:
>
>> Does the owner of the account have the legal authority to give  
>> consent on
>> behalf of all users of that account,
>
> No.   That was the line BT tried to take with Phorm, and there's  
> not the beginning of a legal basis for it.    If CSPs want to try  
> this, they should put wording into contracts with their customers  
> to attempt to impose obligations between their customers and  
> unspecified third parties who are not signatories to the contract,  
> and see how far it gets them.
>
> ian

On the face of it that seems sane and straightforward. However, law  
is not always sane and straightforward. Under certain circumstances  
in English law third parties to contracts do have some rights and  
powers to interfere with the contract. It is not beyond belief that  
the courts could extend this concept in the name of equity to impose  
obligations on a third party. Unlikely, but not beyond belief. It  
would require a very tight and specific case to persuade a court to  
do so, but once it had happened I can see the idea creeping to cover  
more.

For instance, I've signed many an NDA that requires me to impose  
conditions of confidentiality on third parties where I have a power  
to do so. I can quite see a court saying that if a third party, who  
was familiar with NDAs, came into possession of confidential  
information from me, knew that it was likely to be under NDA and I  
failed to impose said conditions on that third party, that a  
condition of confidentiality ought to have reasonably been inferred  
by said third party and therefore they a duty under the NDA contract  
despite not being a party to it.

T'other Ian