Dear Tim Boswell,
I am writing again with regards to the BT/Webwise/Phorm privacy issue.
As you may be aware, a document has recently been leaked within BT detailing the events of the 2006 trials of the system. Analysis of this document by Alexander Hanff, one of the key leaders in the campaign against this sytem, has revealed a minimum of one hundred and thirteen MILLION breaches of various laws (information can be found at
https://nodpi.org/?p=10)
However, the Information Commissioner's Office has recently stated that they have no intention to prosecute or even to investigate. The 2006 trials were considerably more sinister than the 2007 trials as they involved direct modification of the webpage requested between it being sent from the server and received by the user, as javascript tags were injected into the page. This could have been incredibly dangerous to end users.
The ICO has stated publically that they have been reassured by BT and Phorm that the system is legal, and therefore see no need to investigate, completely ignoring this document. Please forgive my cynicism, but I do not believe that the relationship between the ICO and this incident is in any way professional.
The police also refuse to investigate, claiming that there is not sufficient evidence to fight a case - apparantly, one of the higher managers of the company admitting to all of this on national television is insufficient.
It appears from this that we have two separate laws in this country - one governing the people, and one governing the corporations. If I were to set up a wiretapping system on even a hundredth of the scale that BT have used, I would be seeing the inside of a jail cell before dinner tomorrow.
Thank you for reading this. I will also be addressing this issue to Viviane Reding, as previous communications have suggested that the ICO MUST investigate this matter.
Yours sincerely,
XXXXXX XXXXXXXX