ISPA Monitor
20/09/13
Ofcom
Invitation to comment on Ofcom’s annual plan for 2014/15
Ofcom is currently seeking contributions to its work plan and priorities for the next financial year. The Invitation to Comment encourages anyone with an interest to offer their views on which areas Ofcom should address in its Annual Plan for 2014/15. The consultation closes at 5pm on 24th October 2013. Please contact admin@ispa.org.uk if you have any comments that should be included in ISPA’s response to the consultation.
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Ofcom publishes study into disabled consumers’ use of the internet
Ofcom has published a study into how disabled people are using the internet and other communications services. Findings included:
Among the youngest age group (15-34), levels of internet access are largely unaffected by whether people have a disability or not.
For older (65+) less affluent disabled people, internet access levels are at their lowest (23%), significantly lower than among non-disabled people of the same age and socio-economic group (37%).
Across all age groups, internet ownership is 55% for disabled consumers, compared with 83% for non-disabled consumers. This can partly be explained by their older profile as half of disabled people are aged 65.
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Broadband
Public Accounts Committee criticises Superfast Broadband Programme
The Public Accounts Select Committee (PAC) has published a very critical report on the Government’s superfast broadband programme. The PAC report concludes that the programme has failed to deliver the intended competition, included contract terms that were overly generous to the supplier and did not promote value for money. As a result, the PAC claimed that the programme has allowed BT to strengthen its already strong position in the market. The report makes a number of recommendations and in particular calls on the Government to ensure that it secures proper competition and value for money from its post-2015 rollout programme and to increase the transparency in relation to the current rollout programme.
Responding to the report, Communications Minister Ed Vaizey MP denied that the project was running late, insisting “we’re on target to reach that 90% target by 2016, and in fact an independent report came out earlier this month, which said we might actually hit our target in 2015.” Mr Vaizey also argued that the programme was delivering value for money and denied suggestions that the Government was unable to control costings as local authorities had access to all the invoices.
A full summary of the report was sent to the broadband subgroup on Thursday 26th September. Please contact admin@ispa.org.uk if you would like to be added to the subgroup and to request the summary.
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Data Protection
ICO guidance on personal data breaches
The ICO has issued new guidance to public electronic communication service providers to explain when they should report personal data breaches, following new EU data breach rules affecting such providers that came into force late last month. Under the guidance, telecoms companies are required to notify the ICO no later than 24 hours after the detection of a personal data breach and must also keep a log of any breaches which should be submitted to the ICO on a monthly basis. The ICO further indicated that these reports may be subject to freedom of information requests. ISPA advices its members to consider the guidance notes carefully.
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Data protection authorities agree on greater collaboration
The 35th International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners passed a resolution with the aim to improve co-ordination between global data protection and privacy authorities. In summary, the resolution sought to:
Develop a common approach to cross border case handling and enforcement coordination;
Encourage privacy enforcement authorities to cooperate in particular investigations involving cross-border issues; and
Support the development of a secure information platform which offers a ‘safe space’ for privacy enforcement authorities to share confidential information.
The conference also saw the signing of a new declaration – the Warsaw Declaration - outlining the challenges data protection and privacy commissioners face from the rise in mobile applications (apps) and identifying possible solutions. The ICO published a press release on this and claimed that it had played a leading role in the passing of the resolution.
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Online copyright
Culture Media and Sport Committee calls for more support for the creative economy
The Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee has published a report, calling on the Government to better support the creative economy. Broadly speaking the Committee’s report calls for the:
swift introduction of a DEA-style copyright notification system (either voluntarily or through the DEA);
criticises online companies for their lack of effort in combatting piracy; and
argues the IPO is diluting rather than protecting copyright and the Hargreaves agenda is based on a low standard of evidence and undermining the copyright system.
The report was welcomed by rights holders, such as the BPI and a more detailed summary was sent to the liability subgroup on Thursday 26th September. Please contact admin@ispa.org.uk if you would like to be added to the subgroup and to request the summary.
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IPO consultation on collecting societies
The Intellectual Property Office launched a consultation on new proposals to regulate collecting societies. As part of the implementation of the Hargreaves Review, the Government has encouraged collecting societies voluntary adopt codes of conduct to ensure compliance with minimum standards on governance, transparency and accountability. The IPO is now consulting on draft regulations that would allow the Government to intervene if it considers the self-regulatory efforts of collecting societies to be insufficiently robust.
The consultation closes on midday on 7 October 2013. Please be aware that the IPO is not inviting comments on the underlying policy and it primarily interested in receiving feedback on the effectiveness of the proposed regulation.
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Cybercrime
Cyber investigations save UK over £1 billion
A new report by the Metropolitan Police Service’s Police Central e-Crime Unit, reveals that the unit has saved the UK economy a £1.01 billion in the last two and a half years. This is double its target of £504 million. Full details can be found in the unit’s fourth and final Financial Harm Reduction & Performance Report.
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Labour Party Conference: Fringe event – Cybercrime: Our biggest emerging threat?
At a fringe event, organised by BCS Chartered Institute of IT, Shadow Cabinet Office Minister, Chi Onwurah MP, claimed that “Cybercrime is one of the biggest challenges that this country faces”, not least because the UK does not yet have the skills to do so. The biggest gap in cyber security is currently for mobiles, she added, noting how the Government’s strategy on the topic does not mention mobiles at all.
Shadow Crime Prevention Minister, Stella Creasy MP, said she was primarily concerned with the current situation of having five separate government departments with cybercrime in their remit in a minor way, arguing that more clarity is needed over who is accountable and responsible for dealing with the issue.
Home Affairs Committee Chairman, Keith Vaz MP, described one of the recommendations that his committee had made after conducting an inquiry into cybercrime; a state of the art cybercrime response centre. He said such a centre could ensure all cybercrimes were treated in one set way, and create the kind of standard protocol that Creasy was looking for.
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Law enforcement
Government comments on EU data protection proposals, PRISM and nationals security
In a letter to the European Scrutiny Committee, Justice Minister Lord McNally stated that the revelations about PRISM and online surveillance had not altered the Government’s position on the European Commission’s proposals for a new data protection framework, i.e. that it wanted to see the protection of civil liberties of individuals while allowing for economic growth and innovation and providing for the necessary and proportionate use of data by law enforcement. He also explained that the Government was, in principle, supportive of discussions between the EU and the US on data protection issues and surveillance, but emphasised that even though the Commission had a legitimate role in acting as the Guardian of the Treaties, and ensuring that EU law has been complied with, it had no remit in the area of national security.
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Labour Party Conference: Fringe event – Surveillance State
At an Open Rights Group and Big Brother Watch Event, Labour MP Tom Watson spoke out to criticise Parliament for turning a blind eye to “the explosive growth in the power of the surveillance state”. He added:
“We’re living in the most closed system of liberal democracy in the Western world. We have the most unaccountable intelligence services…we have to say we’re not going to put up with this and build a cross-party coalition to make the intelligence services accountable for once and for all and provide oversight of a surveillance state running amok.”
Also speaking was Javier Ruiz – Campaigns Director of Open Rights Group, who called for the start of a movement against mass surveillance: “This isn’t just the responsibility of political parties. We really need to look at a political solution that involves citizens, government and private companies.”
Nick Pickles – Director of Big Brother Watch, told the audience, “How we govern data isn’t fit for the Internet age. Parliament need to drag the intelligence agencies into the open. Secrecy cannot be justified to simply prevent embarrassment. We’ve been telling the world to do one thing while doing a completely different thing ourselves.”
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European Parliament report into the impact of American surveillance on EU citizens’ rights
In a report into the activities of US surveillance programmes and their impact on EU citizens’ rights, the European Parliament has concluded that the rights of non-Americans were rarely raised in the PRISM affair. The report also finds that the accelerating use of Cloud computing further undermines data protection for EU citizens.
The report, therefore, suggests that to provide better protection for EU citizens’ rights in the future, the EU should push for changes to US law, as it believes this is the only solution to resolve the issue of mass surveillance. It adds that ‘the EU must examine with great care the precise type of treaty instrument proposed in any future settlement with the US.’