[AlexanderHanff]

OK, this is an email I just sent to Mr Bohm with regards to his analysis (which I have now read and thoroughly enjoyed):

Dear Mr Bohm,

It is with great honour that I send you this email and that honour exists due to your diligence in your work relating to the protection of privacy in particular in your function as legal counsel for FIPR and your recent work on the Phorm scandal.

I have just completed the reading of both your letter to the Home Secretary and your legal analysis complimentary to Dr Richard Clayton's technical analysis of the same issues last month. I have the greatest of respect for the effort you have made with these activities and hope that they enable the relevant authorities to finally provide justice to the victims of the illegal BT trials of Phorm in 2006/2007; justice which is long over due. I also feel that you have made a clear analysis regarding the current working model of Phorm's product to the 3 ISPs who have expressed an interest in deploying said technologies and hope that in light of such comprehensive analysis, the relevant authorities can take the necessary steps to ensure that the currently proposed model cannot be deployed without violation of criminal, civil and common law.

Your analysis also gave me a degree of pride in that as a student of Applied Social Science at the University of Cumbria (award granted by Lancaster University) I have for the last 2 months been writing my final year dissertation for my undergraduate degree, focusing on the covert trials carried out by BT in 2006/2007 and attempting to the best of my ability, to analyse the very same legal points your recently published document covers. As a student who has concentrated his undergraduate studies on issues relating to Privacy, Technology, Human Rights and Ethics (specifically regarding consent); I have become increasingly aware and troubled by the path our society is travelling with regards to these very same issues. Therefore, I humbly request that you read the almost completed draft of my dissertation which I have attached to this email and would value any comments or insight you may be able to offer. I have recently decided to continue my studies after graduating this spring to a Master's qualification in Law, where I intend to focus on privacy, technology and related human rights. This is a significant change in my original academic plans where I intended to focus on the broader area of the effects of technology on society from a sociological perspective because I now feel that I can achieve more from working within the system as a legal expert than I can by analysing the situation from the outside in as a sociologist. My decision is grounded in my appreciation for work carried out by yourself and your colleagues as well as respected privacy advocates such as Simon Davies and Privacy International.

One issue does continue to concern me though; the issue of complicity. It worries me that the ISPs and Phorm may be in a position to argue that the customer is complicit with regards to any breaches of relevant laws and statutes should they initiate a web based communication after explicitly opting in to Phorm's services, and that in initiating a communication with a web site, they may be regarded as inciting BT to commit the offences you outline in your analysis. I would sincerely appreciate any feedback you have with regards to this matter as it is my belief that a system which could potentially criminalise 70% of the UK's broadband users (the number of people reported to use the 3 ISPs in question) is a very serious and grave societal issue which needs to be addressed and prevented.

I thank you for your time on these matters and look forward to hearing from you in the near future. In the event that your email service may remove the attached dissertation draft, you can access the document on the web at: http://www.paladine.org.uk/phorm_paper.pdf (please note this is a draft and may have formatting, grammar and spelling errors).

Sincerely,

Alexander Hanff
University of Cumbria

(emphasis added).

I am hoping Nicholas will be able to provide some insight with regards my concerns which I have highlighted in bold in the above copy of the email. I will keep you all posted.

Alexander Hanff