You're going to find some of this hard to believe...
To summarise a Freedom of Information Response from the Home Office;
- Home Office had one meeting with Phorm in August 2007 (after the 2007 trials in the summer perhaps?)
- Home Office did not consult with any external bodies (including UK Intellectual Property Office), did not consult with any independent IT or Communications industry expertise, did not consult with any external legal advice before preparing their "Is it legal?" advice document
- Home Office did not discuss with BT/Phorm the proposition that Phorm would enable compliance with proposed UK and European Data Retention laws
- Regarding an assertion that the Home Office might expect "to stand with Industry on any human rights challenge" to Phorm as a possible way forward to a "code of practice for voluntary data retention"*, the Home Office consider the quotes to which I referred were taken out of context from "part of a presentation encouraging the communications industry to retain data under the Anti Terrorism Crime and Security Act. Target Online Advertising is a commercial activity that the industry is undertaking for its own interests. The two issues are not and never have been linked."
* See slide 13 in this presentation;
http://www.fipr.org/sfs6/watkin.ppt