CMA Warns the UK Digital Economy Bill to Kill Public WiFi Internet Access
Posted: 23rd Mar, 2010 By: MarkJ
The CMA (part of BCS), a membership organisation for ICT professionals, has joined the many other voices in raising concerns that what the Digital Economy Bill (DEB) promises to deliver could be the death knell for public access Wi-Fi Hotspots in the likes of coffee shops, pubs, clubs and hotels across the UK.The CMA believes that the Bill makes it possible for a Wi-Fi provider (a Starbucks, a small private hotel, a bed and breakfast boarding house, a village hall community project etc.) to be classed as a communications provider - an ISP - rather than as a subscriber and therefore subject to the same liabilities as BT or TalkTalk.
David Harrington from CMA explains:
"It's becoming obvious that one of the Bill's provisions seems certain to inflict serious damage to the availability of public WiFi access points and thus to an important part of our broadband infrastructure.
In its laudable attempt to protect the music and film industry from illicit downloading, the Government has included measures in the DEB that seem likely to cripple a key part of our broadband access system.
The problem, as should be self-evident to the Bill's sponsors, is that in the case where an infringing guest or other end user is accessing via wireless it could be impossible to identify the miscreant. The WiFi access point owner is then unwittingly exposed to legal action.
A further amendment to the Bill, introduced by the Lords, which will ensure that any action will be heard before the High Court, doesn't improve matters - if anything, it makes them worse."
"It's becoming obvious that one of the Bill's provisions seems certain to inflict serious damage to the availability of public WiFi access points and thus to an important part of our broadband infrastructure.
In its laudable attempt to protect the music and film industry from illicit downloading, the Government has included measures in the DEB that seem likely to cripple a key part of our broadband access system.
The problem, as should be self-evident to the Bill's sponsors, is that in the case where an infringing guest or other end user is accessing via wireless it could be impossible to identify the miscreant. The WiFi access point owner is then unwittingly exposed to legal action.
A further amendment to the Bill, introduced by the Lords, which will ensure that any action will be heard before the High Court, doesn't improve matters - if anything, it makes them worse."
The CMA says it finds it odd that anyone (other than a lawyer) might suggest the High Court is a useful test-bed for the detection of spurious cases. Given the risk of ruinous costs facing any party going to court, CMA suspects it would be unlikely that the 'village hall WiFi co-operative' would take such a route if they received a threat of action from solicitors representing a rights holder and equally unlikely they could find pro bono representation.
CMA believes the Bill will impose a significant financial and administrative burden on the smaller operators of wireless services, namely the need to invest in specialist software and/or the need to track clients to computer ports, and to retain client identity details.
Even if they don't become an ISP then the only other viable alternative would be to pay a Wi-Fi provider, such as BTOpenreach or The Cloud, to manage the service for them. This would also come at extra cost and is likely to make setting up Wi-Fi Hotspots increasingly difficult.
Harrington continues:
"The approach of "we can't quite figure it out, so we'll leave the difficult bits to the courts" doesn't fill us with confidence. While the spotlight of dissent has fallen on the issue of "take-down", (stoked by loud lobbying from the BPI and its allies), there has been little or no exposure of this equally damaging unintended consequence."
"The approach of "we can't quite figure it out, so we'll leave the difficult bits to the courts" doesn't fill us with confidence. While the spotlight of dissent has fallen on the issue of "take-down", (stoked by loud lobbying from the BPI and its allies), there has been little or no exposure of this equally damaging unintended consequence."
The CMA feels that the legislation should simply require the ISP to co-operate and support ongoing (real-time) investigations, without imposing expensive and unworkable restrictions on small WiFi operators that promise not to solve the problem (of illicit file downloading) but only to make the ownership or operation of WiFi access unacceptably hazardous. The damage to the UK's broadband programme will be significant, concludes the CMA.
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