Posted by paul on July 6, 2009 – 10:52 pm
The Register reports today that BT has abandoned plans to rollout its controversial Phorm web advert targeting technology.
BT was planning to go into partnership with web tracking technology company Phorm to deliver targeted ads at its customers. The technology is suspect because Phorm would track all of your activity on the web to determine which ads to display to you on its partner sites. Up to now ISPs have been relatively benign in analysing their customer’s surfing activity.
Privacy campaigners have vigorously questioned how user’s data and privacy would be protected. The debate also spawned a petition on the Prime Minister’s No 10 Petitions website.
It is understood that Virgin Media and TalkTalk both still have the option to deploy the Phorm technology.
Will BT’s decision affect them?
Posted by paul on May 24, 2009 – 9:36 pm
A recent edition of BBC program “Who’s Watching You” has revealed that UK police forces, with the knowledge of the UK government, is building a national grid network of ANPR cameras.
ANPR (Automatic Number Plate Recognition) cameras automatically read the number plate of passing cars and check with DVLA databases whether the vehicle is correctly registered, taxed and insured. Normally the cameras are used by police to stop offending drivers immediately.
However, the linkage of the police, council and other CCTV cameras into a nationwide network and central database means that authorities will now be able to track vehicles across cities and the whole country without anyone knowing. The database will link together sitings of a particular vehicle into a timestamped journey around the country. Since the system will automatically record all vehicles it will allow users of the database to retrospectively track any vehicle. Read More »
Posted by paul on April 27, 2009 – 3:31 am
A recent poll by the Metro newspaper showed that most people don’t want their internet browsing and e-mails intercepted by the UK Government.
The UK Government recently introduced new laws requiring all ISPs and telecommunication companies to record details about all internet traffic, e-mails and telephone calls that pass through their systems.
In the survey 60% of Britons rejected the European directive requiring all communications to be recorded to help crack down on criminals.
It appears that people don’t trust the UK Government to store and analyse the data correctly.
Maybe the Government wants to keep track of all that Viagra spam you’ve been receiving?
