Home » UK ISP News Archive » Article Tag: Internet Privacy (237 Posts)

Articles for Category Tag - Internet Privacy

Broadband ISP TalkTalk Preps New UK Smart Home Protection

21st January, 2021 (16 Comments)

Budget conscious internet provider TalkTalk appears to be nearing completion of a new ‘Smart Home Protection‘ service (app), which is currently being trialled by a number of their broadband customers and looks to be an upgrade of their existing ‘Supersafe Boost’ (usually costs an extra £4 per month) and HomeSafe service.

NordVPN Moving Network from 1Gbps to 10Gbps Servers UPDATE

21st December, 2020 (9 Comments)

NordVPN, which is a popular Virtual Private Network (VPN) provider, has announced that they’re upgrading more of their infrastructure to adopt 10Gbps (Gigabits per second) capable servers in order to boost speeds. London, Singapore, and a part of the US are planned to go live by the end of this year.

Online Harms – UK Finalise Plan for Ofcom Internet Regulation

15th December, 2020 (16 Comments)

The UK government has today appeared to finalise their plans for turning Ofcom into a regulator of internet content via a new legal “duty of care“, which will hand them new powers to force websites (e.g. Facebook) into removing “harmful” content (e.g. terrorism, child abuse, self-harm and suicide imagery etc.).

Gov Tightens Huawei 5G Mobile and FTTP Broadband Restrictions

30th November, 2020 (10 Comments)

In another telecoms policy surprise the UK Government has today announced that mobile operators, such as Three UK, EE (BT) and Vodafone, must stop installing “any” Huawei equipment in ultrafast 5G networks from the end of September 2021. A 35% cap on kit will also apply to FTTP and gigabit broadband from Jan 2023.

Amazon’s Sidewalk Shared Wireless Network Should Be Opt-In

25th November, 2020 (14 Comments)

At some point in the near future Amazon plans to introduce a new feature to their smart devices (Echo, Echo Show, Ring etc.) called ‘Sidewalk‘, which by default will create new wireless network – this has access to both your broadband ISP connection and that of your neighbour’s (if they have similar kit) – to improve connectivity.

New Bill Laid to BAN Huawei and Boost UK Telecoms Security

24th November, 2020 (12 Comments)

The Government will today publish their Telecommunications (Security) Bill, which imposes new rules to improve the security of UK networks (mobile and broadband) and ban “high risk vendors” like Huawei, while also threatening fines of up to £100k a day (or 10% of turnover) against operators that fail to meet the standard.

Error message concept. Alert, attention notification. Important reminder

UK Mobile Operators Launch NumberVerify to Combat Fraud UPDATE

18th November, 2020 (23 Comments)

Mobile network operators including EE (BT), O2, Three UK and Vodafone have today collaborated to launch a new service called NumberVerify (NV), which is a new consumer safety solution that aims to make it both easier and more secure to authenticate a user’s identity for online transactions.

Law Firm Starts Legal Action Over Virgin Media UK Data Breach

14th October, 2020 (17 Comments)

A consumer action law firm, Your Lawyers, has today announced that they’ve launched a Group Action Claim against broadband ISP Virgin Media UK, which gives the provider “four weeks to admit liability” for a recent data breach that exposed the personal details belonging to 900,000 of their customers.

Questions for UK Gov as EU Court Rules on Internet Data Snooping

6th October, 2020 (12 Comments)

The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has this morning issued a ruling that appears to impose restrictions on the general and indiscriminate retention of phone and internet data, which raises some new questions for the UK Government’s Investigatory Powers Act (IPAct) – also known as the “snoopers charter.”

NordVPN Named Top VPN for Speed in 2020 AV-TEST Benchmark

1st October, 2020 (15 Comments)

A new report from internet security firm AV-TEST has benchmarked several popular Virtual Private Network (VPN) providers and found that NordVPN was the “clear winner” for measured broadband download and upload speeds in three major world regions (UK, Japan and the US west coast). Well.. they did commission the “independent” test.

New UK Smart Data Laws May Help Broadband Deal Comparisons

10th September, 2020 (0 Comments)

The UK Government has proposed to mandate that broadband and phone providers, as well as related companies in the sector, should participate in their new “Smart Data” initiative, which aims to foster the “sharing [of] customer data” in order to deliver better product comparisons and billing management across accounts etc.

NETGEAR Decline to Patch Security Flaw in 45 Routers and Modems

31st July, 2020 (19 Comments)

Back in June it was revealed that around 80 of NETGEARs broadband wireless router(s), modems and other products suffered from a remote code execution vulnerability, which could allow “unauthenticated remote code execution with root privileges.” The company patched some of those but seems to have no plan for doing the rest.

EE UK Boosts Parental Controls Over Children’s Smartphones

28th July, 2020 (2 Comments)

Mobile operator EE (BT) has today launched “Set Up Safe” for all UK Pay Monthly customers, which is a free new SMS service that is designed to help parents “quickly and easily set up their child’s phone with safety features” (i.e. block adult internet content, set spending caps and stop them adding extra charges to the bill etc.).

NO Huawei – UK Gov BANs New 5G Mobile Kit from Dec 2020 UPDATED

14th July, 2020 (62 Comments)

The UK Government has today confirmed a dramatic U-turn, which means that new core and non-core 5G kit from Chinese tech giant Huawei will be banned from use in mobile networks from 31st December 2020. But existing kit will get until 2027 for removal and a decision on FTTP broadband ISPs will come later.

Backdoor Access Found in CDATA’s Chinese FTTH Broadband Kit

11th July, 2020 (30 Comments)

Chinese firm CDATA, which makes networking kit for FTTH and Hybrid Fibre Coax based broadband ISPs (often sold re-branded as OptiLink, V-SOL CN, BLIY etc.), is facing a serious problem after security researchers found 7 vulnerabilities in OLT kit including backdoor accounts that grant access to a hidden Telnet admin.

BT and Vodafone Seek 5-7 Years to Pull Huawei or Risk Blackouts UPDATE

9th July, 2020 (16 Comments)

Senior broadband and mobile figures from UK telecoms giants BT and Vodafone have today warned cross-party MPs on the Science and Technology Committee that they’d need at least 5-7 years to fully remove Huawei’s kit from their networks, or “blackouts” could be a risk. The cost may also rise into the billions.

Lords Tell UK Gov to Stop Pandemic of Internet Misinformation

29th June, 2020 (9 Comments)

A new cross-party report from the House of Lords Digital Technologies Committee has called on the UK Gov to ensure that their future Online Harms Bill can tackle the rising “pandemic of misinformation” on the internet, which they warn is a “threat” to democracy. More censorship and blocking by broadband ISPs is proposed.