Lord Carter, author of the government’s recent and much criticised Digital Britain report, will this week outline further details about the new Rights Agency for tackling illegal broadband file sharing (P2P). The agency was first revealed during late January (here), though at the time its precise role was not clear.


One key area the proposals must tackle is how to validate whether or not the rights holders data is accurate. The logical solution would be to ask ISPs to investigate the customers’ activity and see whether that information matches. IP's can easily be faked, spoofed or redirected and thus you can't rely on the submitted data being correct.

The problem with this is that ISPs are not a police force and may risk breaking privacy laws by directly snooping on their customers. It's a bit like asking the Royal Mail to open a person’s personal letters without being sure they're guilty of anything.

There are also technical issues, such as the use of encryption, which can make it almost impossible to see what somebody has been doing online. Failure to properly validate this information has resulted in the wrong people being accused of crimes they never committed.

Elsewhere the Business Software Alliance (BSA) have added to the debate by complaining that Carter's plans focus on music and films, while somewhat ignoring the plight of games and software developers, whom are equally affected.