10. What do you think of government legislation that forces UK ISPs to log all email and website access by UK Internet users for one year (Data Retention)?

ANSWER: There are arguments for and against this, if all you are saving is web access logs and email transaction logs then ISPs are fairly happy to store the information as long as someone is going to pay for the hard drives needed to store the information. The problems come when you start asking for more...

The current Data Retention directive is being amended (iii) to a point where the Home Office are going to require that any form of communication must be record (not the content of the communication but enough of the wrapper to identify who you communicated to and when). This would mean that ISPs would have to intercept all communications and then process them so that all of your facebook, skype, MSN, IRC and in game communications are recorded (yes that means tracking which people in World of Warcraft you spoke to – thankfully not what you said).

The argument is that people are adapting and changing their behaviour to avoid detection (there are apocryphal stories of facebook being used for drug dealing from a number of police forces) and that this is simply law enforcement keeping up with technology. The problem comes when you look at the technical implementation of such a solution and the impact on the end user internet experience.

11. This year has seen a lot of debate about the use and abuse of Behavioural Targeting and Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) based advertising technologies, such as Phorm. However interest in Phorm by some of the major UK ISPs now appears to have ebbed away. What are your thoughts on this type of ISP advertising technology, which many felt was invasive of personal privacy?

ANSWER: Behavioural advertising is something that is here to stay. The problem comes where it placed in the network and there is no real way of opting out, Google Adverts are a form of behavioural advertising but they are clearly placed in places that the website owner has full control over (in the same way that newspapers do) and its easy for a end user to ignore/use the advert at the own will.

Anything that  does Phorm like interception should be avoided, not only because they are potentially illegal under RIPA, but because think of the damage in an office environment if the works suddenly start seeing adverts for bankruptcy lawyers  or your wife suddenly sees adverts for the surprise romantic weekend you were organising.

End.

i - http://newscenter.verizon.com/kit/nxtcomm/Product-sheet-FiOS-1Q07.pdf

ii - http://www22.verizon.com/residential/fiosinternet/Plans/Plans.htm

iii - http://wiki.openrightsgroup.org/wiki/Intercept_Modernisation