Categories:
No sex please - we're on the interweb
Things on her mind
Zoe Margolis - she of Girl With A One Track Mind - has some interesting things to say about on-line privacy in the UK.
She echoes Tim Berners-Lee in his concerns regarding Phorm and the proposed new criminal justice and immigration bill. Having at one time lost her own anonymity, Zoe has good reason to be hot on the heels of this issue.
Should we be concerned?
The Foundation for Information Policy Research certainly thinks so.
In an open letter to the Information Commissioner, they express their concerns on behalf of us all:
"We understand that you are investigating the targeted advertising service offered by Phorm through co-operation agreements with BT, Talk Talk, Virgin Media and other Internet Service Providers.
The provision of this service depends on classifying Internet users to enable advertising to be targeted on their interests. Their interests are to be ascertained for this purpose by scanning and analysing the content of traffic between users and the websites they visit.
This activity involves the processing of personal data about Internet users. That data may include sensitive personal data, because it will include the search terms entered by users into search engines, and these can easily reveal information about such matters as political opinions, sexual proclivities, religious views, and health.
Users are apparently to be allocated pseudonyms for some of the processing, but at various processing stages the personal data can be linked to the pseudonym, the pseudonym can be linked to the IP address used, and the IP address can be linked to the user. Although we understand that this linkage will not be standard operating practice, it can nevertheless be performed.
Many users will also be identifiable from the content of the data scanned, since it will include email sent or retrieved by users of web-based email, and messages viewable by those authorised to gain access to individual pages of social networking sites."
Letter in full
Further reading
Tim Berners-Lee on net tracking
Phorm Inc. on user privacy