Communication Breakdown
Communications from the world of, er, communications. And other stuff.
Tuesday 14 April 2009, 5:25 PM
Whose law is it anyway?
First port of call for comment: the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO). Nope, this one isn't ours, they said, because it's to do with the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA), which is the Home Office's baby.
The ICO also sent us a statement in which it said it was responsible for "Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations", but "these infringement proceedings from the EU appear to relate to the interception of communications". Which is completely unrelated to privacy and electronic communications regulation, apparently.
OK, so to the Home Office we go. Fruitlessly so - according to them, the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) is responsible for this stuff. It is? But I thought the Home Office administered RIPA... never mind...
And BERR said: nothing, thus far (an hour and a half after the request).
Not that I've been passed from pillar to post or anything like that, but it's nice to see how joined-up government works. It's hardly surprising that the government didn't censure BT/Phorm over those secret trials - apparently it doesn't know which department would be responsible!
PreviousComments on this post
How true! What a good article! Now you know the sort of run-around HMG and regulators,have been giving anti-DPI campaigners, trying to get something done about the Phorm DPI technology that is being deployed by ISPs inside their networks. Blood and stones don't come into it. There is an interesting FOI trail to be followed here
https://www.dephormation.org.uk/ - see the FOI menu link for the FOI request trail for each government department over the last couple of years. Sadly, our MPs have been fairly passive on this one, and if it hadn't been for a couple of interested and persistent peers, and God bless her, Vivian Reding, this story would have died a death. But it really does seem as if HMG don't know what to do with this one, or maybe don't WANT to know?
