Bailey Review: Internet Service Providers

Dear Department for Education,

I read the Bailey Review with dismay, particularly his proposal for
involuntary mass communications surveillance by Internet Service
Providers. I believe communications companies have no business
monitoring private/confidential communications. It is entirely a
parental responsibility to supervise the use of communication
technology by children.

In his report Reg Bailey states that he held "meetings with over 40
stakeholders, (retail, advertising, manufacturers,
broadcasters, internet service providers, regulators, academics,
and parenting experts).A full list of organisations and individuals
interviewed can be found at Annex C of this report".

In appendix C of the report, I see few if any Internet Service
Providers listed. Though I see Tesco listed; they are principally a
supermarket retailer (and merely a reseller of other white label
telco services). Though I see Facebook listed; they are an American
web based application provider, not a UK Internet Service Provider.
The one exception is BSkyB, they are both a broadcaster and an
Internet Service Provider (but the capacity in which they met with
Mr Bailey is not stated).

Please could you disclose to me

- which ISPs did Reg Bailey meet before preparing this report
- the agenda, minutes, notes, presentations, or evidence provided
in the course of those meetings with ISPs

Yours faithfully,

P. John

Dear Jenny McMullen,
Thank you for this information, but I'm absolutely horrified.

I saw the word 'privacy' mentioned just once.

Covertly intercepting confidential communications and disclosing
the content (URLs) to a third party without the explicit consent of
*both* sender and recipient is a criminal offence.

For good reason; involuntary communications surveillance undermines
our democracy, threatens national security, and compromises the
vital security characteristics of the UK telecommunications
network.

The minutes you have disclosed include no mention of the critical
important of educating children (and adults) to understand and
protect the value of their freedom to communicate. That includes
the freedom to read and write what they like, with whom they like,
and without fearing covert Government communications surveillance
or censorship.

There is also a paramount need to protect the
privacy/security/integrity of UK communications networks against
spying and foreign espionage, in the national interest. This is
particularly distressing when vendors like Huawei are involved (as
with HomeSafe).

ISPs like BT/TalkTalk/Virgin/Vodafone have an exceptionally poor
track record for dishonesty. For example, the BT/Phorm debacle was
an international industrial espionage scam which BT attempted to
conceal from their subscribers. TalkTalk tested their HomeSafe
product on subscribers and web site operators without notification
or consent. And Vodafone are presently covertly divulging the
content of UK telecommunications to a third party in the USA (which
is an issue of national security).

Please can I make an offer, which I hope you will pass on to Ed
Vaizey. Please could you ensure that members of civil liberties
organisations like NoDPI, ORG, and other civil liberties groups
receive an invitation to attend these meetings?

Otherwise, me and people like me, will devote our lives to
resisting these endeavours using all possible technical and legal
means at our disposal. Resistance is inevitable if you do not take
a balanced, fair, democratic, and lawful approach to policy
development.

Democracy necessarily includes listening to views that conflict,
and the closed circle of people involved in this policy making
forum do not appear to be engaged in much debate.

Use of any communications network is *entirely* a matter of
responsible parental supervision. Whether it is post, phone, fax,
semaphore, smoke signals, email, or the web.

Ed Vaizey has my address, I would be grateful for his invitation. I
am a specialist in telecommunications.

Yours faithfully,
P. John