In 2008 BT PLC made public statements admitting to running covert trials of Deep Packet Inspection technologies for the purpose of behavioural profiling; the trials included more than one hundred thousand of their customers during 2006 and 2007. Key public authorities, privacy experts, the press and the public have voiced concerns over whether or not the trials were legal. The controversy rests in whether or not the trials constituted unlawful interception of communications as a result of not obtaining informed consent from relevant parties.

This paper analyses a wide range of legislation including but not limited to: Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, Fraud Act 2006, Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 and Data Protection Act 1998 – in order to investigate the requirements with regards to consent, the core issue of this debate.