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Originally Posted by unicus
I have thought about this before and wondered if they would try to pass the responsibility of fully informing the user of the interception and profiling down to the account holder (customer). Not sure if they could get around the laws like this but it would require them to sign people up to the Phorm service [sic] specifically with its own T&C's in which case they'll not get many if any people doing so.
An unusual 'provider, customer, user' relationship is seen when connecting up to some hotspots where you are redirected when you first connect because at that stage you are not a customer of that provider but you are a user.
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Naaah they can't do that, because the customer is not making the interception, only inciting BT to do it, BT would still be the party guilty of any interception charges. This is outlined in the response I got from Nicholas Bohm which I will post below for clarification:
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A user who knows what is involved in the use of the technology, and who opts in with the knowledge that he uses (for example) webmail which will not be excluded from analysis, can be argued to incite interception, and perhaps conspire to have it done. This is no defence for an ISP, or for Phorm as a fellow inciter. And it seems to me that even if a prosecutor could be persuaded to prosecute BT, which seems an uphill task, there really is not the remotest chance that a user would be prosecuted.
You may say that users should nevertheless not be put at risk of prosecution, even a little theoretically, and I would not disagree. But I would not place this aspect too far up the list of concerns.
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In other words, in theory customers who opt-in are likely to be accountable for inciting BT and conspiracy, should they initiate a communication with a web site which denies consent for interception; but in reality it is unlikely a customer would end up being prosecuted and even if they did, it would not remove liability from BT under RIPA.
Alexander Hanff