An interesting comment in the Guardian today suggests that the Government may be reviewing the current definition of interception law that makes a significant legal distinction between read and unread messages. At the moment s2(1) of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 defines interception (which can be a criminal offence) as something that takes [...]
The Government has published the two lists of amendments that it will be be proposing in the Lords report stage next week – there are separate amendments on copyright and other matters. These amend the Bill text as it finished the committee stage.
Unfortunately the amendments don’t address the problems with the definitions of “Subscriber” and [...]
As mentioned in my last posting on the Digital Economy Bill, the root cause of its problems for universities, colleges, schools, businesses and rightsholders is the very wide definition of “subscriber” that the Bill uses to assign roles in dealing with copyright breach. In effect, any individual or organisation that isn’t itself an ISP could [...]
In a speech on European Data Protection Day last week, the European Commissioner for the Information Society, Viviane Reding, suggested areas that might be addressed in the forthcoming revision of the Data Protection Directive:
We need to clarify the application of some key rules and principles (such as consent and transparency) in practice;
We need to ensure [...]