Europe steps into save UK Users from Phorm's snooping!

Finally someone is willing to fight for our rights to privacy in the UK.  Sadly it isn't our Government. The European Commission has today started legal action against the Government over its failure to protect the privacy of British Internet users.

The case was sparked by BT’s covert use of the controversial user-tracking technology Phorm on customers using BT’s internet service in 2006 and 2007.

Phorm, a UK-based company founded in 2004, monitors users’ favourite sites and searches, and uses the information to deliver individually targeted advertising.  The European Commission has been concerned about the way Phorm was secretly tested in the United Kingdom. Last year, the Government through the Information Commissioner, backed Phorm after a complaint by Brussels.

However, Vivian Reding, the European Union's Commissioner for Information Society and Media, announced the first stage of legal action, saying that the UK Government had failed to implement European laws that protect Internet users under the terms of  'The Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003'.

"Technologies such a Internet behavioural advertising can be useful for businesses and consumers but they must be used in a way that complies with EU rules,” the Commissioner said. “These rules are there to protect the privacy of citizens and must be rigorously enforced by all member states.”

BT has already admitted that it conducted trials of Phorm without users’ consent in 2006 and 2007. A further, invitation-only, trial was conducted last year.

Ms Reding’s statement continued: “I call on the UK authorities to change their national laws and ensure that national authorities are duly empowered and have proper sanctions at their disposal to enforce EU legislation on the confidentiality of communications.”

Ms Reding’s contention is that UK laws must be tightened to protect consumers and comply with the ePrivacy Directive, which the UK Government signed up to in 2002. It came into force at the end of October 2003.

The Commission has now given the Government two months to respond to today’s “infringement proceeding” - the first stage of a legal process which could end up in the European Court of Justice for an alleged breach of the directive.  The directive states that user consent must be “freely given, specific, and informed”, and it requires EU member states to impose sanctions in the event of breaches of the rules.

Ms Reding reinforced her stern message to the British Government in her weekly video message, delivered via the European Commission’s website.

“Privacy is a particular value for us Europeans; a value reflected in European laws for many years,” she said.

“However, in spite of the many advantages of technological development, there is an undeniable risk that privacy is being lost to the brave new world of intrusive technologies. On the global information highways, personal information is increasingly becoming ‘the new currency’. And I believe that Europeans… must have the right to control how their personal information is used.”

“European privacy rules are crystal clear,” she said. “A person's information can only be used with their prior consent. We cannot give up this basic principle, and have all our exchanges monitored, surveyed and stored, in exchange for a promise of ‘more relevant’ advertisements! I will not shy away from taking action where an EU country falls short of this duty.”

Phorm has already been investigated by the police and the Information Commissioner over privacy concerns. It has attracted interest from UK ISPs including BT, Virgin Media and TalkTalk although no company has yet fully introduced the system.

Tim Berners-Lee spoke out passionately against Phorm at a meeting in the House of Commons in March this year. "It is very important that when we click, we click without a thought that a third party knows what we're clicking on," he said. "'What is at stake is the integrity of the Internet as a communications medium. It's important there should be no snooping on the Internet."

It has always been the contention of Blogcetera and many other industry observers that what Phorm was engaged in was both against the 'spirit' and the letter of the law as laid down in the EU directive that the British Government and Parliament passed into law.  Similarly there are privacy concerns as regards Google’s plans to use behavioural targeting to deploy “relevant” ads to users.  It will be interesting to see whether the EU Commission targets Google as well as Phorm.

Links  :The Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003

Additional Reporting: The Times

Phorm to pay for opt-in customers.

Phorm, the targeted web advertising company, is considering offering customers who opt-in a payment related to their surfing activity.  Phorm is considering contributing to the customers broadband bill or is even willing to make a donation to charity, for any user that signs up for the service.

With BT contemplating rolling out Phorm's service to known as BT "Webwise" it may be that BT customers will be able to receive a reduction in their broadband bill.

The fact that BT and Phorm had been conducting secret trials of the system without BT’s customers’ knowledge caused major concerns over privacy last year and led to the Information Commissioner suggesting that the scheme should only be implemented as an "opt-in" service.  

Given the general suspicion that users have in respect of their surfing activity being tracked, the payment to encourage "opt-in" will need to be significant for most users to accept such a service.

Call to close Google Street View

The director of Privacy International, Simon Davies, is lobbying the Information Commissioner to close Google Street View until the company sorts out privacy-related issues.

The ICO has received a formal complaint based on the the fact that more than 200 reports from members of the public that were identified through Street View, which is a feature of Google Maps.

Before Street View was launched last year, the ICO laid a number of ground rules to which Google said it has abided. But Simon Davies considers that Street View has caused "clear embarrassment and damage" to many Britons.

The ICO, Davies continued, "never grasped the gravity of how a benign piece of legislation could affect ordinary lives" and prompted PI to ask for the system to be "switched off while an investigation is completed".

At issue is what Google promised the ICO when it gave permission for the service to operate in the UK.  He demanded that Google would blur faces and registration plates. However it didn't.

Many of the issues quoted have been trivial, but in at least one case, Google snapped a woman who had moved house to escape a violent partner, but who was recognisable outside her new home. In another, two work colleagues were shown in a compromising position and suffered embarrassment when the snap circulated at their workplace.

Was this a innocent mistake on Google’s part or was the Information Commissioner a little trusting in that Google would do what they said they would do?  Whatever the case, it is time that ICO started to take privacy on the web seriously and take action to safeguard our civil liberties.

Privacy fears grow - Are Government and Industry ignoring civil liberties

Google’s Street View service has contributed massively to the concerns of privacy on the internet.  Not only content with publishing views of individuals going about their legitimate business on line, Google recent announcement to use our search activity on their search engine to target advertisements takes the privacy debate to a new level.

Search information is valuable, allowing firms neatly to target ads to a person’s interests to generate billions in additional advertising revenue. Google, the industry leader, stores personal information for 18 months, and they are not alone as Microsoft’s search engine, Yahoo and AOL all retain search requests for 13 months.

But they are not the only people retaining information.  Today’s revelations by the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust, that a quarter of all government databases are illegal and should be scrapped or redesigned, throws into sharp relief the amount of information that is now available for a whole range of purposes.

The Trust says that storing information leads to vulnerable people, such as young black men, single parents and children, being victimised.

It says the UK's "database state" wastes billions from the public purse and often breaches human rights laws.

But the government says the report contains "no substantive evidence" on which to base its conclusions. A Ministry of Justice spokesman said the government was "never losing sight" of its obligations under the data protection and human rights acts.

"It takes its responsibilities seriously and will consider any concerns carefully, adapting existing safeguards where necessary," he added.

The government spends £16bn a year on databases and plans to spend a further £105bn on projects over five years but does not know the precise number of the "thousands" of systems it operates, the trust claims.

In the wake of numerous data loss scandals, the cross-party trust - which campaigns for civil liberties and social justice - examined 46 public sector systems.

It said 11 were "almost certainly" illegal under human rights or data protection laws.

And what is the Information Commissioner, Richard Thomas, doing about this? Well apparently nothing.  Maybe it is time for the Commissioner to start to earn his salary and start a formal investigation as to exactly what is being stored and retained by both Government and Industry. 

The trouble with civil liberties is that you don’t miss them until they are gone!

BT must be desperate to turn to Phorm

BT all but confirmed that they are going to implement the Phorm service across their 4 million users. Phorm has developed a service to deliver targeted advertising based on user browsing habits by using deep packet inspection (see comment).  Phorm claims that the targeting system is entirely anonymous and the Information Commissioner seems to agree although he has advised BT that users should only "opt-in".

However, there is some doubt on the part of industry experts that the sort of targeting planned by Phorm can ever be anonymous.  So why is BT involved in this dodgy area of activity?  Both Talk Talk and Virgin walked away from trialling Phorm when the level of resistance became clear on the part of users and industry commentators and pressure groups.  Well the answer maybe in BT's recently released financial numbers and the income that Phorm is suggesting BT can make from implementing the service despite the "opt-in".  However, Iain Livingston will face the prospect of BT yielding the ISP number one spot in the UK if they sacrifice the delivery of a quality service for some dodgy incremental income.  There are many more ways of making incremental income without upsetting your user base.  Sadly BT is increasingly run by accountants who neither understand the technology or customers' needs it would seem. (Isn't that similar to what happened to our Banks!)

BT should be very careful or their financial worries could multiply with the addition of Phorm.  This is just targeted spam and we do not want it.  BT should heed that old saying - "All that glisters isn't gold!"