Encroachment…Ed Vaizey blogs about why the UK refused to sign the UN telecoms treaty

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See article from blogs.culture.gov.uk

What’s it all about? The idea behind WCIT was to revise and update a treaty governing international telecommunications services. These are known as the International Telecommunications Regulations — the ITRs. As one of the UK delegation put it in her own blog, this was a treaty that wasn’t about the internet, but really it was. It all harks back to another century, in fact, and as far as telecommunications is concerned, that’s another age — pre-liberalisation, pre-privatisation, before the great boom in mobile telecoms and, of course, before the internet transformed the way we communicate and conduct business. It was concluded in 1988, had never been revised since that time and, to no one’s great surprise, there was much about it that was ripe for revision. The UK and most developed countries could, in fact, for the most part have lived quite happily without the ITRs. But the position of other governments, particularly those from developing countries, was that they needed these regulations to be able to conduct telecoms business on a secure legal basis and — more to the point — they needed them updated for the 21st century. We accepted that position in good faith and that’s why we sent such a large delegation – a multi-stakeholder team of 25 people drawn from government, business, the academic community and civil society. Running into trouble And, to be fair, a lot of progress was made in the two weeks of the conference. Provisions were included on roaming. The provisions of the treaty that deal with charging were modernised — allowing for the old settlements system but explicitly acknowledging the role of competition and commercial agreements. But what the UK team kept running into were proposals to include the internet, content issues, spam and so on — and that’s what ultimately made it impossible to sign the treaty. Governments know best? The point is that the internet has grown up outside a model of government control and regulation. That’s not to say that there is no regulation of activity on the internet — a pretty good rule of thumb is if it’s illegal in the real world, chances are that it is illegal in the online world. But the rules governing the way the internet is run — for example which domain names should be permitted, who should run them and so on — have been developed by a community of engineers, business, civil society and governments working together in what is known as the multi-stakeholder model of internet governance. This, though, is in sharp contrast to the approach being advocated in the ITRs where only governments had a voice in the negotiations, and where very few nations involved other stakeholders in the way we did in the UK. We value a free and open internet So when it came to the crunch, the revised ITRs, with provisions on security, on spam and with an unacceptable resolution on internet governance was not a treaty that I could let my delegation sign. The UK — together with the US, EU member states and a number of others (55 in total) — could not sign it because we value an open internet too much to see it hampered by excessive regulation. The WCIT, however, is not the end of the battle — these issues will be debated again in numerous international meetings in the coming months and years. And in those debates we will continue to fight for the approach that we know works — and that is to keep the internet free and open.

Insults Beyond Offensive…DPP updates guidelines to prevent internet users from being prosecuted for trivial insults

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See article from bbc.co.uk

New guidelines could see fewer people being charged in England and Wales for offensive messages on social networks. The Director of Public Persecutions said people should only face a trial if their comments on Twitter, Facebook or elsewhere go beyond being offensive. He claimed the guidance combats threats and internet trolls without having a chilling effect on free speech. The guidance comes after a string of cases of prosecutions for jokes, and trivial insults, including the prosecution of a man who tweeted a joke threatening to blow up an airport. Director of Public Prosecutions Keir Starmer said the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) had now dealt with more than 50 cases relating to potentially criminal comments posted online. He said the interim guidelines, which come into force immediately, clarified which kinds of cases should be prosecuted and which would only go ahead after a rigorous assessment whether it was in the public interest to prosecute. The guidance says that if someone posts a message online that clearly amounts to a credible threat of violence, specifically targets an individual or individuals, or breaches a court order designed to protect someone, then the person behind the message should face prosecution. People who receive malicious messages and pass them on, such as by retweeting, could also fall foul of the law. However, online posts that are merely grossly offensive, indecent, obscene or false would face a much tougher test before the individual could be charged under laws designed to prevent malicious communications. Starmer said that many suspects in this last category would be unlikely to be prosecuted because it would not be in the public interest to take them to court. This could include posts made by drunk people who, on sobering up, take swift action to delete the communication. Starmer said: These interim guidelines are intended to strike the right balance between freedom of expression and the need to uphold the criminal law. The interim guidelines thus protect the individual from threats or targeted harassment while protecting the expression of unpopular or unfashionable opinion about serious or trivial matters, or banter or humour, even if distasteful to some and painful to those subjected to it. Although the interim guidance is now in force, its final form is subject to a consultation that runs until 13 March 2013.

Claire Perry and the Daily Mail Blocked…Government announces that public consultation on parental internet controls came out strongly against the idea of default website blocking by ISPs

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See article from guardian.co.uk See The Government’s Response to Public Consultation on Parental Internet Controls [pdf] from media.education.gov.uk

Ministers have stepped back from forcing telecommunications companies to filter websites for online pornography after parents rejected the idea in a government-sponsored consultation. A report released by the department for education and the home office instead said that internet service providers will be asked to advise and steer parents towards making an active choice by offering software that blocks out pornography and self-harming sites. The decision follows a 10-week public consultation process. David Cameron had indicated as recently as last month that he wanted firms to follow the lead of TalkTalk, which was the first big name internet service provider to introduce network-level filtering of websites for its customers. The report, released with little fanfare, said: It is… clear that in accepting that responsibility, parents want to be in control, and that it would be easier for them to use the online safety tools available to them if they could learn more about those tools. They also want information about internet safety risks and what to do about them. There was no great appetite among parents for the introduction of default filtering of the internet by their ISP: only 35% of the parents who responded favoured that approach. In fact the figures for all those that responded to the consultation showed: 14% in favour of default ISP blocking 85% opposed to default ISP blocking 1% unsure. The campaign for greater curbs against online porn had been led by the Tory MP Claire Perry, and was followed up by the Daily Mail. The industry pointed out that Perry’s plans were unworkable. The Government will now go to work with the UK Council for Child Internet Safety (UKCCIS) to help parents with the knowledge and tools required to provide flexible and workable parental control.

One Repressive Law Out, One Repressive Law In…Parliamentary Committee criticises defamation law that will lead to website operators taking down contested content without considering the merits of the complaint

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Thanks to Spiderschwein See article from bbc.co.uk

Repressive plans to tackle the supposed problems of internet trolling could have a chilling effect on online freedom of expression, a committee of MPs and peers has said. The Joint Committee on Human Rights warned that libel law reforms might cause website operators to delete statements that had not broken the law. Chairman Hywel Francis said: There should be a higher threshold put in place before material has to be removed. We think there is a real risk that website operators will be forced to arbitrate on whether something is defamatory or lawful, and will too readily make decisions on commercial grounds to remove allegedly defamatory material rather than engage with the process. Proposals in the Defamation Bill aim to protect website operators such as Facebook or Twitter from claims against them when defamatory statements are published by their users, while making it easier to identify the people accused of making such statements. To be entitled to this protection, the websites must either facilitate contact between the complainant and the author or remove the offending material when they cannot establish contact. Under the bill, a statement is regarded as defamatory if it has caused or is likely to cause serious harm to the reputation of a person or a company, but any claim for damages will fail if it can be shown, for example, that the defamatory statement is substantially true . The bill is due to begin detailed scrutiny in the House of Lords on 17 December.

An Advisory Approach…Maria Miller seems to be unimpressed by the Daily Mail’s default website blocking idea

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See  article from  dailymail.co.uk

Parents should take responsibility for stopping their children seeing internet pornography, the new Culture Secretary has said. Maria Miller said the Government was considering calls to make internet companies block access to online pornography. But the Conservative MP insisted that parents had the first and foremost responsibility for monitoring their children’s use of the internet. Miller added that the Government could play a role in advising parents on how to block damaging material on home computers. In an interview Maria Miller, a mother of three, said: I think responsibility is very strongly with parents to make sure that they really understand how their children are using the internet . . . to make sure they are safe. I think probably the awareness of those sorts of pieces of software you can buy or indeed what you can do is not as high as it needs to be

Opting in to Nutter Pressure?…Reports that Cameron is to meet with UK ISPs to discuss website censorship

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Via article from google.com

The Government is to consult on ISPs about new measures to censor family internet access. Under plans being draw up by Downing Street, it would be up to customers to opt-in to receiving adult content online when they take out a broadband contract. David Cameron is due to meet large ISPs to discuss the measures but he is understood to be against even tougher controls on internet porn.. So how come no-once is actually talking about what should be blocked?’ See article from pcpro.co.uk PC Pro have been having fun trying to get Claire Perry to say what content she would actually like to see blocked. Earlier this week, PC Pro contacted the MP for Devizes on Twitter, asking her to define exactly what type of content she would like to see blocked. Our tweet read: Challenge to Claire Perry MP (@Claire4Devizes): we’ll send you 10 website links, you tell us whether ISPs should block them or not, and why. Last night, Perry replied: oh dear, I think you are missing the point. Sigh. What would a current device level filter block? Thats [sic] the test. Get a grip chaps. …Read the full article A sane voice from Francis Maude, minister responsible for cyber security See article from telegraph.co.uk The Telegraph reports from a press release as to what Francis Maude will say today: And as we meet the challenges presented by cyber space, and shape its future, governments need to resist the temptation to over regulate and control. The internet after all has flourished precisely because it has been shaped by its users, not by governments. The Government’s objective is to help shape an open, vibrant and stable cyberspace, the minister will say. He will conclude that a multi-stakeholder approach is needed towards governance of the net — resisting state intervention that would stifle growth and the free exchange of ideas at its heart. …Read the full article And a little about the practicalities of internet blocking See article from bigbrotherwatch.org.uk They are right. Network level blocking is not the silver bullet may have portrayed it to be. Easily avoided, it is a crude tool that carries serious risks, from blocking legitimate business content to introducing new security risks into the internet. …Read the full article

In the Age of Facebook…Government know better than parents when their kids are ready to use Facebook

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See article from telegraph.co.uk

Tim Loughton, the Children’s Minister, has accused mothers and fathers of aiding and abetting pre-teens to open accounts on Facebook. His whinge was in response to Labour MP Ann Coffey who urged the Government and mobile phone companies to do more to combat sexting, where teenagers send sexual pictures of themselves to each other using camera phones. Loughton said parents had a responsibility to monitor youngsters online, adding: Having a Facebook page, you should be at least 13 to do that. That is not legally enforceable. We know, and I know from personal experience, the temptations for younger children to set up a Facebook site and get involved with those social media. And I also know that in too many cases they do that aided and abetted by parents. So it’s not just a question of giving information to parents, it’s making sure parents are acting responsibly on behalf of their children too. A Facebook spokesman said: Facebook is currently designed for two age groups (13-18 year olds and 18 and up), and we provide extensive safety and privacy controls based on the age provided. If someone reports an underage account to use then we will remove it, and use back-end end technology to try and prevent them signing up again. However, recent reports have highlighted just how difficult it is to implement age restrictions on the Internet and that there is no single solution to ensuring younger children don’t circumvent a system or lie about their age. However, we agree with safety experts that communication between parents/guardians and kids about their use of the Internet is vital. Just as parents are always teaching and reminding kids how to cross the road safely, talking about internet safety should be just as important a lesson to learn.

Googling for More Censorship…Attorney General agrees with the idea of extending privacy injunctions to include internet companies

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See article from guardian.co.uk

Attorney General Dominic Grieve has described as an common sense a suggestion by MPs and peers that privacy injunctions should routinely be served on internet companies, as well as newspapers and broadcasters. Grieve told the Guardian: That certainly seems to me an interesting suggestion. The interesting question is seems to me is, if this should be done on a more routine basis, then that seems to have some force. It is very wise; it’s a suggestion of ordinary common sense If a breach [of a court order] is brought to their attention then they will take action. But they can’t act as a policeman on their network; I don’t think that’s necessarily helpful. They do need to act responsibly and clearly need to abide by the laws of the land. His intervention comes after a cross-party committee of MPs and peers urged the government to force Google to remove material banned by courts if it is not prepared to do so voluntarily. The report, published last month by the privacy and injunctions committee, also urged Grieve to be more willing to take action against people who breach injunctions online, as happened with Ryan Giggs over his alleged affair with a reality TV star.

Parrying Perry…Government backs off from the idea of ISPs blocking porn unless requested otherwise

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See article from pcpro.co.uk

The Government has toned down its support for internet blocking and moved to distance itself from a leading anti-porn campaigner. Last year, the Government threw its weight behind the idea of ISPs blocking all porn by default unless adults specifically requested a full service. However the ISPs didn’t find this idea practical. They rolled out the compromise idea of providing blocking software to individual subscribers so that they could be tailored as required. ISP’s would also ensure that these facilities would be made crystal clear to new subscribers. Now it appears the Government is distancing itself from the original idea of blocking porn by default at the ISP level. Foreign Secretary William Hague explained in response to an open letter from rights groups: We believe that parents should be provided with wide tools to enable them to voluntarily block harmful and inappropriate content. It is important to distinguish between Government encouraging people to make more use of existing protections as a matter of choice, and the Government deciding what people can and cannot do online. Our plans do not prevent access to legal material, but seek to make it much clearer that protections exist, and to encourage their use. The Home Secretary also distanced the Government from MP Claire Perry, who has been campaigning for a block on all porn, a stance that has raised concerns among internet freedom groups. Hague said: The position of Claire Perry regarding the default filtering of adult content is not the position of this Government.

Blocking Practicality…Commentators point out the impracticalities of ISP level ‘one size fits all’ website blocking

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Adult content filters can’t replace good parenting See article from guardian.co.uk by Corry Doctrow The government’s proposed web controls are too simplistic when it comes to understanding and filtering adult material Last week’s announcement of a national scheme to block adult content at the point of subscription (as the BBC’s website had it) was a moment of mass credulity on the part of the nation’s media, and an example of how complex technical questions and hot-button save-the-children political pandering are a marriage made in hell when it comes to critical analysis in the press. Under No 10′s proposal, the UK’s major ISPs, BT, Sky, TalkTalk and Virgin, will invite new subscribers to opt in or out of an adult content filter. But for all the splashy reporting on this that dominated the news cycle, no one seemed to be asking exactly what adult content is, and how the filters’ operators will be able to find and block it. Adult content covers a lot of ground. While the media of the day kept mentioning pornography in this context, existing adult filters often block gambling sites and dating sites (both subjects that are generally considered adult but aren’t anything like pornography), while others block information about reproductive health and counselling services aimed at GBLT teens (gay, bisexual, lesbian and transgender). Then there’s the problem of sites that have a wide variety of content, such as the venerable LiveJournal, which contains millions of personal and shared diaries. Some of these have material that children, especially small children, shouldn’t see, but others don’t. Is LiveJournal an adult site? It is, at least according to some filters. …Read the full article Britain’s broadband censors: a bunch of students See article from pcpro.co.uk by Nicole Kobie McAfee creates blacklists of online content, categorising sites in order to let ISPs block them. BT and Sky use McAfee’s lists for their parental controls, which a new Government-sponsored code of conduct requires them to offer to all customers. The overall process is mostly automated, with McAfee’s system looking for keywords on a site to classify it. Toralv Dirro, a security strategist at McAfee’s Avert labs told PC Pro. If there’s any doubt, we do have a team of people that take a look at a website and correct a classification if it’s necessary. The team responsible for covering McAfee’s customers worldwide is made up of between five to ten people. I think it’s a fairly popular job for students, Dirro said. However, he admits the very sites the small team is asked to judge are those that are the most subjective. Drawing the line between erotic and hardcore pornography is probably the most difficult, he said. Another thing is websites that go into extreme left or right side [politically], but still do news or something like that. Dirro admitted there can be difficulties when a mainstream site features material that could be deemed pornographic to some people. Maybe they had pornographic or erotic stuff on their site, which for example could happen with a newspaper site, if they have the ‘Page 3′ picture of a woman on the front page. Normally, the entire site would be banned, not only the offending page. However larger sites such as The Sun have markers to prevent them from being slotted into a category and subsequently blocked. There’s no way you can obtain the complete list from us, Dirro said, adding McAfee would never publish the full list for intellectual property reasons. If you published that list, anyone could just take it and use it and create their own products. If a site has been wrongly categorised, which Dirro admitted does happen, the site owner can open a ticket with support to get it changed. If McAfee refuses to change it, there’s not really much that a site can do, Dirro admitted. …Read the full article EFF Criticises UK Government over Gambling Filter Plans See article from bingosupermarket.com by Mark Bennett The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is criticising the UK government for its plans on internet filtering. In conjunction with the Christian organization Mothers’ Union, UK Prime Minister David Cameron has enacted a plan with four of Britain’s major ISPs, BT, TalkTalk, Virgin, and Sky, to block access to pornography, gambling, self-harm, and other blacklisted websites. The EFF claims that the plan lacks transparency. The blocked categories are vague in nature, and the list’s origins unknown. Not only do the categories contain legal content in some cases, but there is significant room for overblocking. The EFF also suggests opt-in services create privacy concerns. Users who choose to opt out of the bad content filter are then on one list. The plan does not in include privacy protections for the people who choose to opt out. The list could potentially be made public, shaming users who would prefer their Internet with its pornography, gambling, and self-harm websites intact. …Read the full article