Welcome to a New Year

Welcome to the New Year - 2010

This will be an ‘interesting’ year - not the least of which through the absolute knowledge that we will have a General Election here in the UK this year and that the outcome is likely to be a change of government.

When that election will be is still open to some form of guess work. It is probable that the only person in a position to determine the election date does not yet know which date he will choose and that the actual date may well depend on circumstances. Hints from recent interviews suggest that later rather than earlier may be the form - The Crusher suspects that the date will go long leaving the current administration to remain in power for as long as they can in the knowledge that they are unlikely to return in power. Enjoy it while you can!

The Crusher suggests that the most likely date for a General Election will be Thursday 6th May. This is the day already determined for local government elections - it simply makes economic sense to hold the General Election on the same day although this has not always been the case.

The last day that an election may be held is 3rd June. The 2005 General Election was held on 5th May with Parliament meeting for the first time on 11th May 2005. The last date that a notice may now be issued to call a new Parliament (requiring an election) is 10th May - the election would then be held 3 weeks later on 3rd June.

However, for the election to be this late the current Parliament would have to run to the end of its statutory period and would expire. Parliaments in recent years have not expired and elections have been called before the last date.

For an election to be held on May 6th, the Prime Minister would have to ask the Queen to dissolve Parliament some 3 weeks before this date. Notice of the election would thus have to be given around 10th April - one week after the Easter holiday.

Now these dates are not so far away and the short period makes the current legislative programme all the more interesting.

Currently high on the agenda is the Digital Economy Bill with its provisions for restrictions on Peer to Peer file sharing etc. The Bill was in second day of committee stage in the House of Lords yesterday (12th Jan) with a large number of tabled amendments. As expected, many of those have now been withdrawn but there have been further significant additions.

The Bill must progress through committee and then formal reading stages in both Houses of Parliament. That takes times and The Crusher suspects that Parliamentary time will not be sufficiently available to allow passage before Parliament is prorogued and an election is called. If the Bill has not then completed all of its stages then it will fail. The Crusher suspects than an incoming administration will not feel that the Digital Economy Bill will be its first priority - rather that will go to more traditional economy. If the Bill does not pass through Parliament before March it may well be some time before it is brought back.

That may be fortuitous - current amendments tabled by the Secretary of State for Business suggest that technical measures could be applied to all subscribers rather than particular subscibers. That could, if implemented and passed, provide for content filtering for all with specific sites identified by copyright owners. A further amendment provides for discussions and representations between the Secretary of State and rights owners to remain confidential - in order to protect their business interests.

Difficult - and not promoting transparent government. The current developments have seen a number of meetings and representations which have changed the way in which the Bill has been presented leaving a hint of some opacity. If there are to be future changes to the Copyright legislation then the reasons for requiring a change should be transparent and open to all.

A week of Digital Reports ……

It has been a week of digital reports. On Tuesday the Digital Britain report was launched - introduced in the House of Commons at 15.30 and then a little later in the Lords. Lord Carter’s report has been much reported and commented elsewhere so the major points will be well known - particularly the proposal for a 50p per month levy (or tax!) on all landline telephone circuits to help to fund next generation networks and high speed broadband (fibre to the cabinet etc.) by 2017 and proposals for industry action agains file sharers.

But, as ever, the interesting bits are always in the details. Stephen Carter’s ‘Digital Britain’ report (you can download a copy here ) contains proposals for legislation to take actions against persistent file sharers. Here again is the three strikes route but there is recognition of the need for judicial review before termination - and there is also some recognition of potential for problems for the smaller ISPs.

But, in the media frenzy that accompanied Lord Carter’s report there seemed to be little attention paid to another digital report published this week, the ‘Digital Manifesto’ published by the Children’s Charities Coalition on Internet Safety. You can download a copy of the Digital Manifesto here. The Digital Manifesto, written by John Carr, Secretary of CHIS and Zoe Hilton of the NSPCC, is a new version of a document originally issued in 2004. Since that timere there have been substantial changes in the provision of high speed services and the availability of new types of content and service. It is apposite that the new Manifesto is now available, particularly in the run-up to the next General Election.

Of particular interest to those with an eye on the regulation of the Internet industry are the recommendations for action in the area of content blocking and filtering of access to child abuse content. Typically the sites containing abuse content are identified by the Internet Watch Foundation who are able to provide subscribing ISPs with a CSV blocklist.

The report suggests: “The Government should prepare a Bill that will compel all internet service providers based in the UK to adopt the Internet Watch Foundation list, or some other technical solution that blocks access to all known child abuse websites and newsgroups. The Bill should also detail or make provisions for a method by which compliance with this policy can be tested and publicly confirmed. If it becomes clear that some ISPs will refuse to implement a blocking solution unless compelled by law to do so, the Government should immediately put the Bill before Parliament.

In the meantime the Government should issue an instruction to all departments forbidding them from purchasing internet services from any ISP that does not deploy a solution that blocks access to all known child abuse websites. The Government should also encourage the remainder of the public sector to follow its lead. The Government should consider the use of tax or other incentives to encourage ISPs and other technology companies to develop and deploy new or speedier ways of tracking, blocking or destroying online child abuse images.

Some background is worth entering here. In 2006, the then Minister of State at the Home Office, Vernon Coaker, announced a Ministerial target for ISPs to introduce content filtering to block access to child abuse sites for all (ie 100%) of consumer broadband accounts by the end of 2007. This followed the trials conducted by BT with their ‘Cleanfeed’ system. It is estimated that now, in 2009, the implementation of content filtering is about 95% with predominantly consumer circuits filtered by the big 6 ISPs. There is now considerable pressure for action to be completed to close the remaining 5% gap - suggested as representing some 700,000 households.

There now appear to be some distinct groupings amongst ISPs. There is a group that have implemented filtering, there is a group that have fundamental philosophical objections to the process; there is a group that claim that they cannot afford the cost and there is a final group that will not take any action unless they are forced by legal mandate.

OK, the last group are clearly targeted by the Manifesto recommendations. The cost issue is a little more of a problem. The initial costs for large scale providers such as BT were not inconsiderable. Although costs have come down they remain potentially high for the smallest providers, particularly those who only have a few hundred, perhaps a thousand end user customers. For these the unit costs can be substantial and potentially more than the margin on circuits in the tight UK market. It is interesting to note a comment amongst the detail (the devil is always in the detail!) in the Manifesto (footnote 60 to be exact) with a suggestion that there should be central Government support for the smaller providers, perhaps included within the provisions of the upcoming Communications Data Bill. ‘The Crusher’ thinks that any such support would help those for whom the costs of filtering represent a disproportionately large element of overall provision and might be targeted at those with fewer than 1000 consumer connections.

‘The Crusher’ is aware of the pressure to close the gap. At the end of April ‘The Crusher’ had a meeting with a Home Office Minister who emphasised the Governments commitment to the 100% target and the need to see self-regulation deliver filtering across all consumer circuits within the next few months. If the self-regulatory model was to fail then there was clear indication that the Government would look to introduce mandatory legislation later in the year, perhaps in October. This would be likely to be seen as a non-contentious Bill that would attract cross-Party and media support.

The CCIS Digital Manifesto is a pointer for action by the ISP community. It is clear that the issue will not go away and that ISPs will need to take actions. There is now a European dimension to the issue with a proposal for a Framework Decision which includes, as Article 18, a clause requiring member states to introduce mandatory blocking of child abuse images.

The Manifesto recommendation that Govt. should include filtering as a requirement in public sector contracts is interesting - and would follow the inclusion of quality management and environmental management credentials. The forthcoming ISPA Awards will be interesting - and there may well be pressure on winners, particularly in consumer delivery categories to state and, if necessary, to justify their position in relation to the Govt. target and the Digital Manifesto recommendations.

In a week when we saw two digital reports, it may well be that the recommendations of the CCIS Digital Manifesto have a greater chance of becoming law.