Withheld Response to EU Information Society and Media Commission

Dear Sir or Madam,

Freedom Of Information Request concerning Phorm, Webwise and the
interception of internet communication without customer consent by
BT plc in 2006 and 2007.

I would like to know the following:

a) Did you answer all the questions raised in the letter from Fabio
Colasanti of the information society and media commission and were
they each answered in full? If not, what questions or parts of
questions could not be answered and what is the position with
regards to answering them fully in due course?

b) I would like to see a full and complete text of the response
communication sent by BERR, including those parts of the response
not already made public on Tuesday September 16th?

c) Was the decision to withhold part of the response from the
British public made by a member of our parliament, or did the
decision not to make the full response public involve consultation
with any member(s) of parliament? If so, which parliamentary
members were involved in the decision making process?

e) Further to the above, on what grounds was the decision to
withhold parts of the response from the British public based?
Please publish the internal communications leading up to this
decision.

f) EU directives state that unless someone specifically gives
authorisation to allow their activity on the Web to be tracked, a
business doing so without a legal warrant does not have the right
to do that. I would like to know why nothing has been done to
tackle BT plc in a court of law about their activities in 2006 and
2007? This has not been answered in any publicly available
documents including public notices from the ICO, the Police or the
Interception Of Communications Commissioner's Office. BT apparently
carried out actions that lead to EU directives being broken and UK
legislation may also have been broken, yet we have not seen this
tested in court - why?

Thank you

Yours faithfully,

S Hankin

Dear Sir or Madam,

I note that there is no reply to this request.

As you will be aware, the Freedom Of Information Act does require
you to make a response within a set time frame. This permitted time
expired yesterday on the 14th October 2008.

I feel certain that this is an oversight and that there has been no
intention to break the law, but it is nevertheless an offence.

I request that this response is now made a priority.

I look forward to hearing from you in due course.

Yours sincerely,

Steve Hankin

Dear Balchin Patrick (BR2),

Sir, this replay was due on the 14th, so I believe it may be said
to be two days late rather than one as stated in your reply.
However, I graciously thank you for the response received.

Yours sincerely,

Steve Hankin

Your BERR Ref: 01.04.05/3876C
FOI Request: 08/0621

Dear Sir or Madam,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of
Information reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of Department for
Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform's handling of my FOI
request 'Withheld Response to EU Information Society and Media
Commission'. Specifically I would like to ask for a review of the
decision to withold the text if the response from the UK to the EU
letter.

I am requesting this review because your reason for declining the
request specifically stated two things:

1) That it relates to the formulation or development of government
policy

2) That it relates to negotiations between the UK and EU
authorities

My review request on (1) relates to the fact that from what I can
see, the EU letter did not ask about formulation of new laws or
policies so section 35 of the law does not apply. We already have
laws which experts believe should be enforced and the public
interest is substantially present. The public want to know the
answers to the same specific questions that the EU asked.

I request review of (2) the decision based on section 27 of the act
because you say there are negotiations to take place but the EU
letter to our
government did not make any reference to negotiations. The EU
Commission has
asked only why the government believes that the trials of Phorm did
not break EU laws and this is where the public interest lies.

I see much public discussion about the lack of the release of this
letter but I see no members of the public at all supporting the
witholding of the letter. I requested release of the letter so that
the public can understand why the UK government believes that the
Phorm system does not contravene existing laws.

I note that the Information Commissioner Office recommends a target
period of 20 days to respond to an FOI review request. I appreciate
that there are some public holidays ahead and clearly these will
need to be taken into account. I would therefore appreciate knowing
if it will take any longer than 25 days to complete this review and
the detail behind what the basis for any delay is.

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is
available on the Internet at this address:
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/wi...

Yours sincerely,

Steve Hankin

Dear Balchin Patrick (BR2),

I am very grateful for the acknowledgement you have sent me however
I would like to point out the following which the Information
Commissioner's Office has just confirmed to me:

The recommended time to complete a request is 20 days (not 40) and
the absolute maximum is 40. Forty is not, as you stated,
recommended.

I do however appreciate that this is not an easy FOI request to
answer, and it may take some time to respond fully after
considering the facts with due care and attention.

If it gets to 20 days and you have not been able to meet the
recommended timescale, I would therefore appreciate it if you could
follow the ICO best practice and expliain the issues.

Many thanks once again.

Yours sincerely,

Steve Hankin