EU sues UK.gov over Phorm trials The European Commission is suing the UK government over authorities' failure to take any action in response to BT's secret trials of Phorm's behavioural advertising technology. The Commission alleges the UK is failing to meet its obligations under the Data Protection Directive and the ePrivacy Directive. The action follows 18 …
It'll be the taxpayer *initially*, but there is always the option of the real villains being prosecuted in a UK court and fined. We'd get the money back, then.
Last I looked, it was the Home Office that was dragging its feet on this one, and *they* are supposedly overseen by the Home Secretary, who *ought* to be accountable to the electorate.
"The City of London police dropped their investigation of the Phorm trial, claiming BT had reasonable grounds to believe it had customers' consent"
How do they work that out, then? Did BT threaten to cut off their phone lines if they didn't drop the case?
I hope HMG will pass on any euro-fines to BT, otherwise we will all end up paying for Mr Ertegrul's little adventure.
"If the government loses the case, it faces fines of millions of pounds per day until it brings UK law in line with European law."
The "it" that faces the fines being the unfortunate taxpayers who will ultimately pay the fines and who are also the victims of the privacy violations concerned. None of those responsible will see any dent in their salaries, pensions or golden handshakes. Why not fine the former ministers and officials responsible for introducing RIPA in the first place and then fine those currently responsible if they fail to remove the offending legislation in short order?
"Why not fine the former ministers and officials responsible for introducing RIPA in the first place and then fine those currently responsible if they fail to remove the offending legislation in short order?"
Because you'll get more money out of a government than you will from its ministers and any minister who loses millions of pounds to Brussels will get a very uneasy ride from the British (=Australian) press.
A press which is strangely silent on the matter as of this morning.
Last time I checked the concept of democracy a government represented a country not a political party.
Not to mention that we apply sanctions against Cuba, North Korea or Iran that impact the people of those countries not their governments, even if in some cases those governments are not even properly elected.
At last! Why has it taken the EU to wake the UK govt. up to the useless bundle of nonsense that it calls privacy laws? Thank you EU. And no thanks at all UK government who have been a disgrace - whatever party is in power.
Apart from the fact that the taxpayer will be picking up the tab, I hope they get hammered. No doubt this will run and run and the timescale will be in years.
Because hardly any EU comissioners are up for BT directorships when they retire of course!
Of course our politicans dont want tougher privacy laws. Cos if that happened, when they become directors in a few years time, they may get hit with them!
Heck look at the ACS: Law debacle. There facing a *maximum* fine of £500,000 quid for loosing data including credit card data!, The largest fine ever meeted out was 2.3M to Zurich!, and thats after months of investigation!
To a company like BT, thats a laugh.
If they were forced to have to take Privacy *seriously* it would cost them *millions*
Go ahead and leave the EU. If you do, I hope they let Canada join. By the gods, that would be so unbelievably excellent. I am sorry you don’t hold the same values as I do, but I honestly believe that membership in the EU is the single best thing that can happen to any country. The EU isn’t perfect…but it’s the best we have developed so far. I would be deeply proud to have my nation join. Hell, I’d be proud to be able to get citizenship in a country member country.
The EU has done more to protect the rights of ordinary citizens than any other political organisation or government in human history. In the modern world, it may well be the only government willing to actually take such stands. (Especially against large corporations; something no other government anywhere will stand up to.) I can understand that there are other people who do not believe as I do. Fair enough. I can’t share your sentiments, but I would die to protect your right to those beliefs.
In the mean time, I would be glad to exchange my citizenship for yours; membership in the EU is to me far more preferable than membership in the impending American hegemony.
Pint, because we should all just relax a little and not stress over things we cannot control.
So let me get this straight; a private company tries to invade MY privacy and rights, is forced to retreat by a public backlash because the regulator fails to intervene, and now the EU wants to fine the UK Government for millions of OUR tax money ?
How does that work? Who is actually protecting the citizen here?
(As the saying goes) we need to nuke the Eurocrats in Brussels from orbit. It's the only way to be sure...
If they were protecting US they'd fine the individuals who failed :
BT
The government minister(s) who failed to apply EU law
The civil servents who failed to advise their ministers
After all we don't all get fined if one motorist speeds , do we ?
We need to ensure fines & court sanctions always end up being applied to natural people, not companies or other legal entities
This is the idea (please note that it is a general idea I do not imply that the current government is better than the previous or viceversa)
- YOU vote for a government that doesn't care for the law
- EU Commission fines YOUR country because it does not follow the law
- YOU don't like being fined so next time YOU vote for a different government that DOES care about the law
Unfortunately narrowminded people have problems dealing with logical thinking so I guess I am wasting my time here....
How else are they going to pay for the Greek bailout? Europe is essentially a socialist setup and, despite the recession, it seems we still have more than our fair share of wealth. They only want to redistribute it a bit... </cynic>
The chances of Ertugrul and his co-conspirators getting what they deserve because of this is vanishingly small. This is not a result, people.
The EU is not the same as the Eurozone. It's the countries that have the Euro who will be bailing out Greece and the other PIIGS members, not the EU.
And yes, the news *is* a result. A hefty fine will go some way towards making the Home Office and Justice Ministries pay attention to upholding the laws they are responsible for. They let this Phorm evil go on even after it was clear it violated UK and EU law. And even now they're still resisting.
The only bummer is that BT and Phorm - may they both go bust and rot in hell forever - are not getting fined.
Action should be taken against the party in government at the time, which failed to act, not against the government in general. That way, any punitive fines would be levied against that funds of that party, and not against the treasury in general, which only results in a drain on tax revenue, which is effectively punishing those who were spied on (the tax payers) for being spied on (by BT).
Come to think of it, action should also be taken directly against the company that commissioned the trials (looking at you, BT), and the company that carried them out (Phorm, are you dead yet?). THAT is towards whom fines should be directed, not the taxpayer.
I can only assume you work for either the Labour Party, BT, or Phorm. This strikes at the very heart of the issue of political responsibility. Once we elect somebody, they should be held responsible for the actions they take. They are supposed to be our representatives, not our masters. If, by omission, deliberate inaction, or otherwise, they fail to enact legislation which they are legally bound to do by treaty with the EU, then it is their responsibility, not ours. They are the ones who should be punished for their negligence, not us, through taxation.
Now, it can be argued that the current lot of incumbents should be held accoutnable for continued failure to enact legislation that should have existed in the first place, and been used to punish BT et al. Because such legislation would now be post-facto, it would probably not be legal to apply said legislation to the offenders here (BT et al again). IANAL, obviously, but I believe this to be the case - a law cannot come into power on a date before it was passed.
Having said that, I'm pretty sure an existing law COULD be found under which BT COULD be prosecuted. In this case, it could very well be argued that City police were negligent in their duties to the public. I don't know what exactly those duties are, but I bet you there is a charter somewhere that says they should have pursued and prosecuted BT. If this is the case, the individuals involved in dropping this case should be fined, not the police in general. They, too, are underfunded (thanks to the political classes, but that is another subject for another day). Ideally, those members of the old boys clubs, who pulled the strings at BT, Phorm, the City police, and in Whitehall would be tracked down, fined, removed from power, and possibly prosecuted under anti-corruption laws, if we have them. I say 'ideally', because I am not so naive to think that will ever happen.
"If the government loses the case, it faces fines of millions of pounds per day until it brings UK law in line with European law."
Should read:
"If the government loses the case, the UK taxpayer faces fines of millions of pounds per day until it brings UK law in line with European law."
Obviously the bribes and back-hander BT handed out to the unelected and secretive EU-wonks wasn't enough. UK MPs must be much, much cheaper to buy. Hmm....haven't there been news stories about that fairly recerntly?
The trial isn't about BT/Phorm doing testing. Its about there being no UK law to stop them. The law is written and voted on by parliament. The fact there is no UK law is illegal under European law, so the EU is taking UK.gov to court. Even though what BT have done with the trials of Phorm is morally wrong they have broken no law (allegedly), so they aren't on trial or liable for any fine.
Once again our elected representatives have let us down by:
1, Getting the thing wrong in the first place
2, Not fixing it over a year ago when the EU first threatened to take them to court over there being no law.
If they had then it would be BT/Phorm in the dock now, not UK.gov.
Shiznit!
What Phorm and BT did is still illegal under both EU and UK law, as EU legislation has direct effect in the UK. This direct effect is not dependent on the UK government making local regulations, nor is it dependent on the UK government correctly transposing EU law. In principle an aggrieved individual could take BT and Phorm to the High Court for damages (and/or an injunction, if they had not already stopped the interception).
The problem is the usual one: individuals cannot afford access to justice in this country. It would cost in excess of £50,000 to get the remedy the individual was entitled to. Moreover, they would risk losing their house if their application failed (perhaps on a technicality), as they would potentially be liable for the legal costs racked up by the other side on their QCs, junior barristers and teams of solicitors.
Once again I shudder at the notion of "millions of squids in fines...."
Let's look at this logically. The English public were spied on by BT and once they found out complained to uk.gov who did fuck all.
Now their being spanked for their fuck alledness in the form of fines, and that money comes from........ the English public. Talk about a double shafting eh?
Why, oh why can't we bring back more sensible means of holding the perps responsible for their actions? Financial fines will be useless as these dodgy bastards always have their money hidden so let's learn from the past....
......I propose public floggings. That'll teach em!!!
In his summary of the offence and passing sentence Lord Justice Everard Edbutt declared "It would appear the defendants, after being made aware of the infractions committed by their chums and policical financiers, made a concious decision to divert attention away from the offences committed. Their attempts to ignore the offences and blatant option to do fuck all has left the British tax payer holding what is tantamount to the shitty end of the stick. I therefore pass judgement that these shitehawks are taken from this place to the public square and the skin flayed off their backs. I deem justice will then have been served on the twats without detriment to the public at large."
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