Disconnection or Suspension?

What’s in a word? Is there really a difference between ‘disconnection’ and ’suspension’? Are we now approaching an end game in which the Government will want to make small changes to the Digital Economy Bill in order to ensure that it passes through the Parliamentary process with the minimum of problems before the Prime Minister calls the General Election?

Well, the PM is the only one who knows the date of the election - or so we are led to believe. Smart suggestions have tagged the 6th May as the day, coinciding with the district council elections, but there have been suggestions in mid-February that the PM may decide to call the election earlier, particularly if there appears to be a double dip within the recession.

The Digital Economy Bill has been progressing through discussion in the House of Lords with a succession of amendments being laid before the House, withdrawn or incorporated. The Bill has now been through the Committee stage and will move on to the Report stage with further line by line examination on 1st March. After completion of the Lords stage, the Bill will move on to the Commons for further stages - 1st and 2nd readings, Report stage, 3rd reading and consideration of amendments. The Crusher continues to think that these stages have the possibility of taking more Parliamentary time than will be available.

However, it is noticeable that there have been changes to the Bill. Much trumpeted at the beginning of the process was the inclusion of powers to allow the disconnection of internet service for those found to have been engaged in file-sharing. There had been some suggestion, maybe incorrect but widely publicised at the time, that changes were introduced by the Secretary of State following a weekend meeting with a Hollywood producer, changes that would have hardened up the response to potential file-sharing.

Now, it seems that the Government is back-tracking. A response to a No 10 Petition sets out the Government’s position and that it considers there should be economic recompense for those engaged in creative production. No problem there, and the response goes on to indicate, “that [the Bill] require[s] ISPs to write to their customers whose accounts had been identified by a rights holder as having been used for illegal down loading of their material. In the cases of the most serious infringers, if a rights holder obtains a court order, the ISP would have to provide information so that the rights holder can take targeted court action.” Little difference there to the current procedures where most ISPs pass on notifications of potential abuse and discuss with their customers and where some (ISPs) have been the subject of court action to release details of customers to rights owners.

The interesting line comes later, “We will not terminate the accounts of infringers - it is very hard to see how this could be deemed proportionate except in the most extreme – and therefore probably criminal – cases.” This appears to be a step back from the previous position and may have more than a passing nod to the discussions emanating from Brussels - where it is clear that access to broadband internet is seen as a basic right.

“We will not terminate” - that is the interesting bit and really comes back to ‘disconnection.’ What’s in a word? If you terminate or disconnect an ADSL circuit then the ISP puts an order to the wholesale provider to physically disconnect the circuit at the exchange, to remove the inter-connect on the frame between the PSTN and the ADSL mux. BT raise a charge for this, a charge that is now passed on by most ISPs to end-users. Terminate and you will be charged - ISPs will not want to bear the costs of this and will probably find it difficult to recoup costs from either end user or from rights owner. When the end user wants to re-connect there will be a standard connection charge applied by the wholesale provider. Now, suspend and the link to the internet is removed at the ISP (block the authentication request) but the physical link remains in place. To the end user there is still no access but there is no charge for disconnection and no charge for re-connection (add those two together and you are talking about quite a susbtantial penalty) and the ISP only needs to permit the authentication again when the suspension is served. Depending on the terms of the service agreement, the end user could find themselves liable for on-going circuit charges during the suspension (the wholesale provider will continue to levy these).

In terms that the end user will understand there may be little effective difference (until the charges roll in), they will still be unable to access the internet. French legislation (the ‘Hadopi’ law) suggests that suspension may be applied for up to 12 months - that will pretty much seem like termination to the user - there does now need to be some indication within the UK process as to what the terms of suspension may be.

There do appear to be movements in other areas. An end user may wish to appeal against a decision to apply ‘technical measures’. There does now seem to be some change to the appeal process and to the way in whcih the measures will be applied by Ofcom. This may be particularly important where an end user has a wireless network and someone unknown accesses the network and uses it for file-sharing. If the subscriber can show that they took reasonable measures to prevent access (although the exact nature of ‘reasonable measures’ is not explained) then they may well have a good case for appeal.

There is now no option for the introduction of immediate suspension - technical measures will not be able to be introduced for at least 12 months after the coming into force of the initial obligations code. No suspensions until April 2011 at the earliest (and then likely to be another Government that will take the hit!).

It may well be that the politicians are playing with words before an election - but there are differences between termination and suspension. What we now need is some clarity as to what the intention is in relation to length of suspension - 1 week for first offence, 1 month for second etc.

Vetting turnaround

The Independent Safeguarding Authority was set up following the recommendations of the Bichard report into the circumstances surrounding the murder of two young girls by Ian Huntley, a school caretaker, at Soham in Cambridgeshire. The murder was a shocking event and was quite rightly reviled but the outcome in the form of the ISA was the creation of a draconian new quango with the power to bar persons from contact with young people or vulnerable adults.

Of course there should be protection and there should be barring. Anyone convicted of a sexual or violent offence should be barred from working with vulnerable groups. That has been in place for many years. Part of the Bichard response was to bring together various bar lists into a single place - no problem with that.

The problem was that the new legislation required that all adults working with young persons or vulnerable adults on a frequent basis had to submit to CRB checks and ISA registration. Without the registration, employment or activity was not permitted. The issue was predominantly around the definition of the term ‘frequent’. Initially this was taken as meaning regular contact with children - monthly for example. The definition caught a number of groups who had not previously required clearance - authors visiting schools, parents taking part in the running of sports clubs etc. There was a backlash which was initially rejected - the protection of children comes above all else ….. On the one hand that seems reasonable but on the other hand the implications were that somewhere in the region of 11 Million people would need to achieve ISA clearance and registration in order to carry out activities - both employed and voluntary. It is the voluntary that causes problems (those undertaking employment expect to be checked and that successful checking will form part of the employment contract) - many perceived the checks as requiring them to prove that they were not paedophiles before being able to help out with clubs, societies etc.

There is a fundamental assumption in English law that a person is innocent until proved guilty beyond all reasonable doubt. In this case there was an assumption that if a person could not present an ISA registration then they must have something to hide and might well be a paedophile. This, of course, is wrong but that was the perception. A group of well known authors (Philip Pulman and others) objected and made it clear that they would cease to visit schools if they were forced to submit to checks. Parents found themselves being told that they would have to register in order to transport their own and other children to sports events.

Now, the Education Secretary (Ed. Balls) has announced a climb down - the definition of frequent is to be taken down to contact with the same group of children on a weekly basis rather than monthly. It is estimated that this will reduce the number of registrations by 2 Million - dropping from 11 to 9 Million. OK, a step in the right direction - but bear in mind that the number of barred individuals is only likely to be in the order of 20,000 to 40,000 - at worst case scenario just 0.4% of all those checked.

Now protection of children is right and proper but when you set 40,000 against 9 Million there does seem to be something of an over zealous approach. The figure of 20,000 barred individuals represents the current pattern (just 0.2%), however this could rise to 40,000 under the new vetting regime. Why the difference - well the ISA will take evidence of suspected activity rather than proven (in a court) when deciding to bar an individual. If there is suspicion that an individual may have engaged in activities but there is insufficient evidence to bring a prosecution to court then this may be disclosed to the ISA and may result in a decision to bar. The ISA (chair, Sir Roger Singleton, speaking on BBC Radio 4 ‘Today’ programme - 14th December) will give an individual the opportunity to dispute a bar decision but the Crusher does think there may well be a problem here. Unfortunately, many teachers are falsely accused of activities which might lead to barring and therefore to dismissal. When accusations are made they must be investigated although this can take far too long and can result in severe stress leading to deterioration in health and dissillusionment with working in the education environment. The result is that perfectly good and innocent teachers are forced out of their job. When the investigation clears the teacher it may be too late - but it may also be the case that the accusation remains on the teachers record and may be disclosed in a future ISA request. If that is then used to bar the individual from working this would be a gross abuse of process.

The Crusher is of the opinion that this may well happen - there are already examples where a employee has been rejected because a CRB search revealed a record retained within the national DNA database recording samples taken when the person was arrested on a suspected charge and retained even though there was no further charge or conviction. The person was innocent of any charge yet remains at the mercy of a retained sample. Somehow The Crusher suspects this will happen in the ISA process.

The reason for all of this bureaucracy is ‘the protection of the children.’ The Soham case is often quoted to justify the means -yet an investigation of the actual circumstances of that case suggests that the new vetting system would not have been able to prevent the act - the victims came to know the murderer through a third party who would have passed checks and registration.

The Crusher is all in favour of checks, vetting and barring in order to prevent those convicted of relevant offences from working with children or vulnerable adults. But this has to be done in the context of a proportionate and relevant response. Even with the changes announced by Ed. Balls this week there does not yet appear to be a willingness to implement an appropriate control.

However, there was some additional glimmer of hope. Recent reports have shown some circumstances where schools have introduced procedures that go far beyond the legislation - requiring all adults coming on to a school site to be in possession of CRB checks, including parents - and local authorities have prevented parents from accompanying their children in play parks stating that children could only be accompanied by CRB cleared adults. Ed. Balls has now made it clear that there have been gross over-reactions and these should be reviewed. sadly this seems to be all too common a situation - headteachers and others react and respond to their perceptions of legislation and regulation without fully investigating or understanding the actuality of the requirement. Health and safety seems to be another area liable to similar mis-construction. The reason is always the same, ‘for the protection of the children’. By over-reacting we are denying much that is good and right - to the detriment of the children.

But - there is an election in the offing. Will the incoming Governement have the Balls to repeal and re-draft the legislation.

Data retention - still some unhappy states

The Data Retention Directive was introduced into European law back in 2006 - with a requirement that member states transpose the first phase by September 2007 and the second phase by March 2009 (where the State took advantage of a derogation in rellation to IP based traffic).

Interestingly, both Belgium and The Netherlands advised the European Commission of their intention to take advantage of the derogation in relation to IP. That still meant that they were expected to transpose in relation to fixed line and mobile telephone traffic by September 2007 but that had opted, like the UK, to leave IP based retention until the later date.

A group of Belgian organisations have now raised a petition to protest the local transposition of the Directive. In August, the Belgian Minister of Justice proposed a retention period of 2 years (the maximum within the range of the Directive - 6 months to 2 years) . The UK settled on 12 months - interestingly the Belgian Data Protection Supervisor felt that the 2 year period was too long and disproportionate and should be reduced to 12 months. The Belgian petitioners felt that there was not sufficient evidence to justify the retention of traffic data which they felt was not a solution to security issues.

Just to the north, the Netherlands government is also engaged in discussion. A few wees ago, government agencies held meetings with ISPs to provide some clarification of terms within the new Data Retention Act - EDRI-News reports that after the meeting there was still confusion as to what was required and for how long. As currently implemented, both telcos and ISPs are required to retain data for 12 months but discussion in the upper house of the Netherlands parliament (Senate) has suggested that the Minister may be prepared to reduce the ISP requirement to just 6 months (as was suggested in the UK, bearing in mind the low level of requests of user data in relation to IP based traffic).

A full description of the Netherlands law (2008) can be found at the site for Agentschap Telecom, the Dutch telecoms regulator.

There has also been discussion in the Netherlands about the possibility of centralised retention of traffic data. ‘Bits of Freedom’ in the Netherlands reports that some 3 Million requests for traffic data were served by the Netherlands police in 2008 - on a population of some 16 Million. That is a very high figure when compared against the reported request rate in the UK - Surveillance Commissioner reported 0.5 Million requests in 2007 against a population of some 60 Million. If the UK rate were the same as the Dutch then that figure would be in the order of some 11 Million requests!

Clearly there remains considerable concern and disquiet across Europe.

The Directive provides for review of the retention policies in 2010. Clearly there is likely to be a lot to be discussed.

Article 138 amendment

The Crusher understands that agreement has now been reached in the Conciliation phase of discussions relating to the Telecoms Package Agreement between the European Council and the European Parliament.

The agreed text should now read:

“Communications networks shall respect the fundamental rights and freedoms of natural persons, as guaranteed by the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and general principles of Community law.

Accordingly, these measures may only be taken with due respect for the principle of presumption of innocence and the right to privacy. A prior, fair and impartial procedure shall be guaranteed, including the right to be heard of the person or persons concerned, subject to the need for appropriate conditions and procedural arrangements in duly substantiated cases of urgency in conformity with European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. The right to an effective and timely judicial review shall be guaranteed.”

The amended amendment changes the original - that provided a much clearer requirement for judicial review and oversight before a user account could be suspended. The new version (as above) provides for the right to be heard (in the UK that would seem to be to bring a complaint before a new Ofcom body) and then to seek judicial review at a later stage. The fact that the amendment does not require prior judicial review now leaves the way open for the 3-strikes approach.

If the amended amendment is now approved by vote in both the European Parliament and the European Council (of Ministers) then the Telecom Package will be able to proceed.

Amendment 138 falls out into the Grand Place…….

For some time the European Commission and the European Parliament have been in discussion in relation to the development of a new Telecoms Package, a raft of new laws with the intention of revising and updating the regulatory control of the telecoms industry. Included within the package were updates to the Privacy and Electronic Communications Directive that would impact on the receipt of cookies (commonly used by advertisers and others) by a web browser.

But, the passage of the Telecoms Package was held up by the introduction of an amendment, Amendment 138 which aimed to control the move towards the ‘3 strikes and you’re out’ approach to the regulation of peer to peer file sharing.

The rights industry has been pushing hard for national governments to adopt the ‘3 strikes’ approach as a way of trying to contol the use of file sharing and unlawful copying of rights protected materials. The idea is that users identified as engaged in unlawful filesharing will receive a letter from their ISP to advise that the sharing is unlawful and (in pretty much most cases) in contravention of the ISP acceptable use policy. Experience suggests that the first letter had some effect in about 50% of cases. Many of those responded to confirm deletion of infringing materials and that they would not engage in any further file sharing. For those that continue, a second, stronger letter would be sent before a third letter and then disconnection of internet service.

It is the disconnection that is the problem. Many now consider access to broadband as a basic human right - alongside access to water, power etc. There was political support for the view, including from Mdme Reding, European Commissioner for Information Society. The problem was (is) that disconnection would take place without judicial review and potentially without the option for the accused user to defend their position and argue their innocence. When the Telecoms Package came before the European Parliament it was amended by Amendment 138 to require judicial intervention and oversight before disconnection.

The Amendment provided the clear requirement for a judicial role and in so doing acted as a brake on the proposals by certain European governments to press ahead with legislation to enable ‘3 strikes’. Before any disconnection could take place a rights owner would have to go before a judge and plead a case for disconnection of the user. And, of course, the user would have the opportunity to defend his position. In France, President Sarkozy promoted the ‘Hadopi’ legislation and in the UK, the Digital Britain report and the Business Secretary, Peter Mandelson, engaged in discussions to push ahead with a ‘3 strikes’ approach. It is notable that Peter Mandelson appears to have come out strongly in favour of ‘3 strikes’ since a weekend meeting with a leading producer.

For the European bureaucrats and politicians the groundswell of public support for Amendment 138 provided a problem. Whilst the Amendment was debated it held up progress on the whole Telecoms Package and with the imminent arrival of the Lisbon Treaty conference there was a political need for progression.

Now, at the last minute and just before the conference, there has been agreement in Brussels to accept a watered down version of the amendment Pressure from national governments that will allow them to introduce disconnection for persistent file sharers (and who else the Crusher wonders?).

Jérémie Zimmermann, spokesperson for La Quadrature du Net,(quoted on ISPreview) said: “Amendment 138 was in haste dissolved into useless legalese and soft consensus. The Parliament hurried to get rid of the safeguards of citizens’ freedoms because it knew that with the imminent coming into effect of the Lisbon treaty, both institutions will soon share the legislative power in the field of judicial affairs. And the bad excuses we have heard these past few days to justify to abandon amendment 138 will then be totally obsolete. In the end, the Parliament was not brave enough to stand against the Council to defend citizens’ freedoms.

Ministers of Member States, who want to be able to regulate the Net without interference from the judiciary, were rushing to kill amendment 138 and put an end to the negotiations. It is a shame that the Parliament’s delegation, and especially rapporteur Catherine Trautmann, was not determined enough to use the political context to assert its authority in the European lawmaking process in order to protect European citizens. Even though it has been an interesting and constructive discussion, amendment 138 has turned, by the lack of courage of the delegation, into the emblem of the powerlessness of the Parliament.”

So, in the face of political pressure to reach agreement before the meeting of Heads of State/Prime Ministers to conclude ratification of the Lisbon Treaty and the appointment of a new President of Europe, the Council has over-ridden the European Parliament (which had previously voted substantially in favour of Amendement 138) which has now accepted the reduced version limiting the rights of the citizen.

The way is now clear for those member states who wanted to introduce ‘3-strikes’ to do so. In the UK, Lord Mandelson has now announced actions to be taken against repeat piracy offenders and procedures will be included in the Digital Economy Bill expected to be included in the Queen’s Speech (18th November) with passage through Parliament before the end of the current session.

Lord Mandelson met with Internet industry representatives before the announcement was made. Mandelson asked the Internet industry to consider the proposed ‘3-strikes’ process in the context of the wider business economy (in iother words, consider the impact of filesharing on the revenues of the music industry) and to realise the importance of creativity. The Crusher understands that Lord Mandelson was fairly combative in his approach to the Internet industry but that the industry did make him aware of their concerns about proportionality, cost, options for alternative modes of contents delivery, due process etc.

The devil, as they say, will always be in the detail so it remains now to see how the Digital Economy Bill is drafted in order to see exactly how the ‘3-strikes’ approach will work in the UK. It would seem likely that the rights industry will contribute to the costs of the ISP in communicating with users and that there will be a likely lengthy process before any disconnection take place. It is likely that Ofcom will set up a dispute panel procedure to hear appeals from consumers targetted for disconnection and that Ofcom will collate information relating to the issue of notifications.

But - time is now running out for this Government. A full General Election must be held before June 2010 at the latest. As we are now clearly in the run up to the election and campaigning has been going on for some time, The Crusher wonders whether the Govt. will actually be able to progress the Digital Economy Bill to the Statute Book before dissolution.

The other matter, of course, is in Brussels. The actions there point to the ineffectiveness of the European Parliament. The elected representatives of the European citizenry are over-ruled and kicked into touch by member states acting in the European Council. The European Parliament has no ability to initiate legislation and can only comment and amend - it seems now that their ability to amend has been curtailed in the face of opposition from member states.

Summer is passing by …..

After a period of quiet, summer seems to be passing by and the news is beginning to fill with other than the normal ’silly season’ stories. Parliament may still be in recess (will be for some while) and Ministers and others are well away from Westminster - where is the Prime Minister (Alastair Darling is stepping in in Gordon’s absence) and has he had to obtain a CRB clearance to engage in social projects…… umm!

But, work does go on for some and there are a few stories making the headlines.

Back in June, Stephen Carter published the final version of the Digital Britain report. That was much trumpeted and covered elsewhere - we chose to look at another digital report that appeared around the same time, or rather, the Digital Manifesto published by the Childrens Charities Coalition on Internet Safety. Now we have the arrival of the implementation plan for Digital Britain and we can see how the legislation is being planned in order to put into place the various recommendations.

The provisions of faster broadband and universal access have been much covered in the media. The reality is that faster access can only come through a fundamental change in the delivery infrastructure - and that means moving to direct fibre. The plans for a ‘digital tax’ (a levy of 50p per month on all fixed line telephone circuits) seems to have gone quiet……

Other areas have more direct impact on ISPs in the short term. The music industry has campaigned about the problems of piracy and the losses that it suffers as a result of peer to peer file sharing etc. There are more immediate pressures for changes in this area and we can now see that part of the implementation group has been tasked with:

Consultation on proposals to legislate to give Ofcom a duty aimed at reducing copyright infringement

Consultation on the trigger mechanism which needs to give both rights holders and ISPs strong incentives to make the notification system work

There have already been some agreements between ISPs and rights owners and these have resulted in letters being sent to users identified as uploaders of file share materials. This - an implementation of the ‘three strikes’ approach - provides for a step approach when a user is identified as being involved in peer to peer sharing. Practically, identification means users uploading (advertising) materials for download by others. However, the identification is somewhat fraught - there are well recognised possibilities of false seeding of IP addresses and other techniques to swamp rights owners search processes. There are also problems where users have unsecured networks (wireless routers) and are held liable for use by unauthorised users. It is not a legal requirement to secure a network - it may be negligent but that definition may be dependent on the user’s understanding and knowledge of their system.

It seems that the approach recommended by Digital Britain is for ISPs to adopt active packet shaping in order to restrict the performance experience of those identified as being persistent or regular peer to peer users. Whilst this may have an immediate attraction, the reality may well be that larger ISPs may have the capacity and the capability to make this happen - but that the smaller providers may not. Smaller providers may have just one, or perhaps a small number of central pipe connections which may make it difficult to route users to a particular ‘bad boys’ pipe. Some of the smaller users have made specific marketing decisions not to packet shape or to block traffic in order to differentiate themselves - there may be problems in implementing technical solutions which are not currently provided for within the network equipment.

There are other actions within the Digital Britain report to look at the funding structure of the Internet Watch Foundation - and to incorporate its work within pan-European approaches to child abuse content identification and blocking.

Of course, the summer period would not be summer without media scare stories. On Monday 17th August the Daily Telegraph reported that a file sharer had been ordered to pay damages and disbursements of £16,000 by the Patents County Court in London. The Telegraph went on to suggest that parents cold find themselves with substantial charges as a result of file sharing and downloading by their children. The case against the Internet user was brought forward after action on behalf of their client (a games producer) by solicitors Davenport Lyons. Davenports had persuaded the High Court to grant orders requiring ISPs to divulge details of users of particular IP addresses - ISPs will normally be reticent in any such disclosure for fear of contravening the data subjects rights under the Data Protection Act. Davenports had previously acted for a number of rights owners including Atari but this case does now seem to have gone further with a strong deterrent level of fine and disbursement applied.

Other media reports (Daily Mail) suggested that the Business Secretary, Lord Mandelson, had agreed to impose fines on those found to be abusing their Internet access. This story was rapidly denied, ‘A spokeswoman at the Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) told The Register that it was “nonsense” to “speculate” that Mandelson would target teenagers who illegally download music and films.’

It is worth noting that fines can only be issued by a court after a hearing in which the accused has the right to submit a defence. Penalty charges may be applied in other circumstances but these are not ‘fines’. The Magistrates Association expressed concerns (19th August) that the police might ‘abuse’ proposals for new powers to award fixed penalty notices (comments strongly rejected [of course] by the police) - the thought passes our minds that Ofcom may be given powers to impose fixed penalty notices on end users accused of infringing copyright. The Magistrates Association made the comment that fixed penalties are fine for absolute offences but are problematic where there is a subjective interpretation involved. In the case of copyright infringement there may well be good defences - a hijacked network, use by other without the service owners consent or knowledge etc.

But all of the legislative changes to be implemented as part of the Digital Britain Bill are dependent on the
Bill receiving parliamentary time for debate and passage. It is in the Government draft legislative programme for the final session of this parliament - but an election is due by June 2010 (bring it on we say!) and there must be reservations over actual passage of large scale legislation before then.

It does still seem to be ’silly season’.

End of an era …… Kodachrome finally bowing out after 75 years

Every so often you come across something outside of the normal run of the blog and its focus on privacy, data retention and Internet regulation. One of those moments came today with the announcement from Eastman Kodak that it is to cease production of the iconic Kodachrome film stock. Kodak will not be producing any more Kodachrome stock and estimates that current stocks will last until late autumn 2009.

Kodachrome is 74 years old - it first appeared in 1935 and has survived through to 2009 as a result of its unparalled near achival stability and its minimal grain - you really could project a Kodachrome image across the side of a building and still not see the grain. Through the 1960s Kodachrome was the film of choice for many families - with processing included in the price you shot the film, loaded it into the yellow mailer and popped it in the post. A few days later a yellow box arrived with the mounted slides ready for viewing. Quality was superb, in good sunlight the colour rendition was outstanding.

Kodachrome was a difficult film to produce and required processing that was quite different to the ’standard’ E6 slide and C41 colour negative stocks. But this was the key to its longevity - Kodachrome film did not contain the colour dye couplers that were required to create the colour dyes in the 3 layer subtractive matrix. The colour dye couplers were introduced as part of the processing and were removed in that processing before final drying and mounting. It is the colour dye couplers that are particularly sensitive to oxidation and it is their presence in other film stocks, both before exposure and after processing, that has caused substantial problems, reducing stock shelf life and promoting subsequent image fade over time. Ektachrome and other similar stock shots from the 1970s and 80s are often now unusable whereas Kodachrome remain fresh and vibrant.

There will be many images that are remembered - but one will be Steve McCurry’s Afghan girl that stared out of the cover of National Geographic on countless bookstalls in 1985. Set to music, Paul Simon wrote:

Kodachrome
They give us those nice bright colors
They give us the greens of summers
Makes you think all the world’s a sunny day, oh yeah
I got a Nikon camera
I love to take a photograph
So mama don’t take my Kodachrome away

In the UK, Kodachrome K-14 processing was carried out by Kodak at their Hemel Hempstead plant. That closed some years ago exposed film sent for processing in Europe. Today their is just one remaining Kodachrome processing plant in the world - Dwaynes Photos of Parsons, Kansas, USA - Dwaynes have confirmed that they will continue processing Kodachrome until the end of 2010. Just check out the processing steps with its multi stage re-exposure with specific colours to carry out the reversal process perhaps to realise the complexity and cost in the modern age.

Visit the Kodak web site for the company release and stunning examples of the output - there is an online slideshow and further discussion at A thousand words -a tribute to Kodachrome and at The Kodachrome Project.

Undoubtedly the demise of Kodachrome is partly the result of the wholesale switch to digital imaging. Digital is fast, clean and effective - but there remains more than a sentimental memory of a film stock that recorded so much of the 20th century - and remains to display in vibrant colours.

RIP Kodachrome - I suspect we will still see your images in another 75 years time.

May we live in interesting times ……!

The next week (week beginning 27th April 2009) appears to have the makings of a rather interesting time. Perhaps the ancient Chinese proverb was indeed close to the truth.

Later this week we expect the Home Office to publish details of the Intercept Modernisation Programme and the Communications Data Bill. Readers will remember that the Bill was originally trailed in the Government’s Draft Legislative Programme published in summer 2008 but was quietly dropped from the Queen’s Speech later in the year for ‘ additional public consultation.’

Well, it seems that time for consultation is here and we now expect the Home Office to publish the consultation document and details of the Intercept Modernisation Programme (IMP). The Daily Telegraph today (Saturday 25th April) printed a front page story to indicate that the consultation will resurrect the ideas of a single centralised database to hold details of all telephone calls, emails, web access etc. The Telegraph reports (in print - it does not appear on their web site - why not?) that the Information Commissioner has reiterated his opposition to the database, indicating that he considers this to be a major intrusion into privacy.

The Government, of course, appear to be trotting out the same old story - we need to monitor web access, email etc. in order to track terrorists and serious organised crime. And, if recent performance is anything to go by, also those sending their children to school and those ‘allowing’ their dogs to foul the pavement.

There are fundamental issues of privacy and rights of the individual at stake here. The current authoritarian and nanny obsessed government simply cannot be allowed to rail-road this legislation through. Remember the sentient words of Benjamin Franlink in 1775, ‘Those who give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.’

What we need is a little real risk assessment and some real truths - not the one-sided ‘business case’ that we have seen with other consultations. This is a fundamental issue of rights and the ability of the Government to spy on its own citizens. Levels of control as are being suggested have only existed in the most heinous totalitarian regimes - we cannot sleep walk into allowing a British government to overturn centuries of hard won reforms for a short term gain. As Franklin suggests, the cost to the people is just too great.

Data Retention is here

The Data Retention Directive has now completed its transposition into UK law and is in force - as of 6th April.

After passage through both Houses of Parliament the Regulations became law as Statutory Instrument 859 - made, it appears, on 2nd April and implemented on 6th April. Interesting then that the actual regulations were not published until 7th April, the day after implementation.

The Regulations can now be read here - along with the explanatory memorandum and impact assessment here.

OK, so the regulations are now in force. It is now up to the Secretary of State to provide ISPs with notification so that they know what they have to retain. If they do not receive any notification then they don’t have to retain. The regulations provide for the setting up of an implementation group - that is not likely to happen too soon so it may well be some time before the notices go out and retention actually starts.

Ah well - on we go, a bit of a mish mash again.

New rail service to the Isle of Purbeck

At last a more joyful event - after many years of hard work the first direct rail service left London for Swanage in the Isle of Purbeck today - 1st April. The last direct through train was in 1972 - since then the rail link was first ripped up and then, painstakingly relaid. The rail link was made back in 2002 when a Virgin Voyager paid a visit to Swanage - but 1st April 2009 was the date for the first through passenger working from the main line. An important event indeed.

DB Schenker Class 66 66152 heads the Purbeck Pioneer past Lymington Junction at Brockenhurst enroute to Swanage from London Victoria - 1st April 2009.

66152 arrives at Swanage with the Purbeck Pioneer

The initial service sold out so quickly a second train has been chartered for the 2nd April. Further main line link services will run with the first steam hauled services on 2nd and 4th May.
All being well, this will now be the start of regular passenger services to Swanage and, perhaps in a few years time, a regular timetabled service to the Jurassic Coast.