February 22nd, 2016

Last week, LINX re-launched its website. As a consequence, LINX Public Affairs Blog will now be available at: http://www.linx.net/public-affairs

The site that you are reading now, publicaffairs.linx.net, will remain in place as an archive for the time being, but will eventually redirect to the new blog.

Thanks for reading, and we hope that you will continue following us at linx.net/public-affairs.

Posted by sam at 16:00 PM | Comments Off | Permalink
February 12th, 2016

The Joint Committee on the Investigatory Powers Bill published its long-awaited report yesterday, making a total of 86 recommendations for improvement.

Key recommendations include:

  • That the drafting of the Bill should make clear “the intention of the Government’s policy to seek access to protected communications and data when required by a warrant, while not requiring encryption keys to be compromised or backdoors installed on to systems”.
  • That “if bulk powers are to be included in the Bill, a fuller justification for each should also be published alongside the Bill”.
  • That the government do more to “conclusively prove the case” for Internet Connection Records.
  • That another joint committee should “review the operation of the powers in the Bill five years after its enacted”.

The report references LINX’s evidence to the Committee a number of times.

The Committee recommends that the government undertake further consultation to clarify the definitions of communications data and content, referencing LINX’s evidence in support of this recommendation.

70. LINX explained that the definition of entities had its roots in the “subscriber data” de nition in RIPA, which in practice meant “the information that a telecommunications operator held about their customer, such as their name and address, and other relatively unintrusive information regarding the services taken and billing.” They argued that new term “entity data” was “exceptionally broad” as it no longer referred only to customers, but could include anyone interacting over a telecommunications operator’s network. LINX also suggested that the breadth of “entity data” would be wider still due to the new de nition of telecommunications operators.

The report quotes at length LINX’s characterisation of the Request Filter as:

an enormously powerful and intrusive new investigatory tool that brings the power of Big Data analysis to law enforcement investigation on an unprecedented scale

Our concerns over third-party data were also referenced, and the Committee recommends that the government should refine the definition of “relevant communications data” to address these concerns. Our support for the Single Point of Contact (SPOC) system was also noted.

Posted by sam at 18:39 PM | Comments Off | Permalink

The Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) has published a report making significant criticisms of the Draft Investigatory Powers Bill, arguing that “the Government has missed the opportunity to provide the clarity and assurance which is badly needed”.

The ISC expresses disappointment that the Draft Bill did not provide a comprehensive and transparent legal framework which would consolidate all of the security services’ “intrusive powers” in a single Act of Parliament. Referencing the Committee’s March 2015 report, Privacy and Security, the ISC said:

Our key recommendation …was that the current legal framework governing the Agencies’ powers should be replaced by a new Act of Parliament, clearly setting out all the intrusive powers available to the Agencies, the purposes for which they may use them, and the authorisation required before they may do so. …The draft Bill makes some attempt to improve transparency; however, the Committee is disappointed to note that it does not cover all the Agencies’ intrusive capabilities. This failure to address the Committee’s key recommendation means that various powers and authorisations remain scattered throughout different pieces of legislation.

The Committee also raises concerns over privacy protections, and the lack of clarity on key powers contained in the Bill.

  • Overall, the privacy protections are inconsistent and in our view need strengthening. We recommend that an additional Part be included in the new legislation to provide universal privacy protections, not just those that apply to sensitive professions.
  • The provisions in relation to three of the key Agency capabilities – Equipment Interference, Bulk Personal Datasets and Communications Data – are too broad and lack sufficient clarity.

The rushed time-scale of this legislation, an issue LINX raised in its own submission to Joint Committee, also comes in for criticism.

While we recognise the timing constraints imposed by the ‘sunset clause’ in the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act 2014, it appears that the draft Bill has perhaps suffered from a lack of sufficient time and preparation and it is important that this lesson is learned prior to introduction of the new legislation.

For more information, see the ISC report (pdf).

Posted by sam at 18:38 PM | Comments Off | Permalink
February 8th, 2016

The UK has signed a joint letter and a non-paper on the European Commission’s ongoing review of the Electronics Communications Framework.

The letter, signed by the UK, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Ireland, Finland, Lithuania, Poland and Sweden, sets out a number of priorities for the review, emphasising the principle of technological neutrality, competition and private sector investment. The signatories also argue for a “proportionate approach to the regulation of over the top services”.

The Commission has identified that many consumers now consider over the top (OTT) communications services to be the same as more traditional telecoms services, yet these two types of service are often regulated in different ways. We do not believe that automatically extending all consumer protection regulation provided by the framework to OTT services is the answer. For example, some consumer protection regulation addresses the scarcity of resources, such as numbering, upon which traditional services rely, but many OTT services do not. A proportionate approach is therefore needed to avoid unnecessarily burdensome regulation that will stifle innovative new services.

The UK, Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden also signed a complementary “non-paper”, setting out the countries’ broader policy positions, with a focus on competition, investment and consumer protection.

Main points:

  • Ubiquitous connectivity and access to resilient, high-speed, high-quality networks are becoming the foundation for all sectors of the modern economy, making an updated regulatory framework for electronic communications vital.
  • Consumer protection rules should be as simple as possible while ensuring an adequate level of consumer protection with transparency and easy switching as the foundation.
  • A revised framework should focus on enabling the competition needed to drive new investment and deliver the most consumer welfare.
  • It should also continue to enable spectrum harmonisation when introducing new frequency bands in order to promote introduction of new digital services, but maintain national competence in allocation procedures and license conditions.
  • Universal Service objectives and methods need to be brought up-to-date.
  • The review should aim at simplifying the “SMP” assessments and make it easier to impose symmetrical obligations where appropriate.

For more information, see the joint letter and non-paper.

Posted by sam at 14:12 PM | Comments Off | Permalink
January 29th, 2016

The UK government is consulting on the future of the Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) scheme for subsidising broadband roll-out.

BDUK is seeking input from broadband operators, local authorities and devolved administration, in order to inform a new “state aid” agreement with the Commission, which would allow continued public subsidy to broadband roll-out. The previous “state aid” decision expired at the end of June.

A number of funding models are under consideration, including:

  • Investment Gap Funding, similar to the current model.
  • Public private partnership, “a Joint Ventures (“JV”) or Special Purpose Vehicle (“SPV”) with a private sector supplier or suppliers”
  • Concession to Build-Operate-Transfer, where “an Implementing Body lets a concession contract to build, operate and generate revenues from a network, which returns to public ownership at the end of the contract”
  • Public sector owned supplier

For more information, see: National Broadband Scheme – Market Engagement – GOV.UK

Posted by sam at 20:20 PM | Comments Off | Permalink

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has proposed changes to the rules on broadband advertising, following research which claimed that many customers had poor knowledge of the total cost of their services.

In a press release on 21 January, the ASA said:

While we remain open minded as to how pricing should be advertised so as not to mislead consumers, we will suggest to broadband providers that they advertise:

  • All-inclusive up-front and monthly costs; no more separating out line rental
  • Greater prominence for the contract length and any post-discount pricing
  • Greater prominence for up-front costs

We will decide on a final recommended approach on advertised pricing offers and communicate it to industry and the public before 30 May.

The research, jointly commissioned by the ASA and Ofcom, claims that 81% of those surveyed “were not able to calculate correctly the total cost of a broadband contract when asked to do so”.

In a summary of ISP opinions by ISPReview, some ISPs welcomed the proposals, while others were alarmed by the timing of the announcement and the small sample size of the research.

Gigaclear welcome’s this approach, it is something we have been using since this company started and is needed as there is a lot of confusion on what their monthly charges are as many believe they only pay the advertised price for broadband, not realising that line rental and some call features are additional monthly costs.
— Joe Frost, Head of Marketing at Gigaclear

At Entanet we think it is alarming that this ruling has been issued and is to be applied, at relatively short notice, after a woefully brief study that interviewed a mere 300 individuals across a wide demographic. Once again we also see decisions being made based on the actions and advertising clout of the largest consumer players while completely ignoring the way the broadband provision market works when you include the highly relevant smaller ISPs.
— Darren Farnden, Head of Marketing at Entanet

Posted by sam at 20:19 PM | Comments Off | Permalink

The Swedish government may be considering blocking gambling sites – a move which would reverse the country’s long-standing opposition to Internet filtering.

A new regulatory regime for gambling, currently under consideration by a government-appointed special investigator, would require gambling sites to seek a license from the Swedish government.

In a letter received by Jon Karlung, CEO of Swedish ISP Bahnhof, the investigator reveals that ISPs could be forced to block unlicensed gambling sites, and invites the CEO to discuss the matter. Bahnhof immediately “raised the alarm” in a press release on their website, publishing the letter in full.

A successful move to block unlicensed gambling sites would represent a substantial change in direction for Sweden’s Internet regulatory regime. The Swedish courts have repeatedly opposed attempts to enforce Internet filtering.

For more information, see:

Posted by sam at 11:48 AM | Comments Off | Permalink
 
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