Big Brother Uncovered UK » privacy

BT sees ad sense and abandons Phorm

paul — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 21:52:26 +0000

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?

Satellite Tracking of School Buses

paul — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 02:11:37 +0000

A recent " target="_self">BBC Wales News story tells how counties in North Wales are launching a scheme to provide GPS tracking of school buses and to make it available to parents. So parent will now be able to track their precious child to and from school. It’s all being rolled out in the name of reducing unruly behaviour on the buses.

The organisers Zoom say “…We don’t believe it is (spying on the children). We think it is a way of ensuring that the system works a lot better…” They also say “…The system is actually very secure. There’s no information on the (ID) cards that the pupils will be given themselves. It’s all held on a database and it’s obviously governed by data protection.”

Well that’s OK then given the UK Government’s record on securing our personal data in Government databases. As safe as houses!