Open Rights Group reports that Ofcom is having a tough time developing a code of practice delineating how ISPs will be forced to comply with the Digital Economy Act, meaning that the required December deadline will continue “to cause error and uncertainty” and will fail “to give proper reassurance about the effect on our fundamental rights.”
This past April the UK’s Office of Communications (Ofcom), regulatory body for the telecommunications industry, began work on an “Initial Obligations Code” that will define how ISPs will be expected to comply with measures to tackle illegal file-sharing per the Digital Economy Act.
The Open Rights Group, a non-profit digital rights advocacy organization, met recently with officials from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills to discuss Ofcom’s efforts and to raise a number of serious concerns they have with Ofcom’s code.
In particular they are:
- standards of evidence for rights-holders: which are not properly defined, but instead are part of a ‘quality assurance’ scheme;
- identification of subscribers for ISPs: which again is not defined by the code, and is part of an ‘quality assurance’ scheme;
- standardisation of letters: which the Act is very clear about, setting out certain things that the Code must require of letters, but is missing or damaged in the draft code;
- appeals process: which is simply mangled;
- Future of WiFi: which everyone says they wish to protect, but will without doubt be discouraged under this code; and
- The lack of an economic and privacy impact assessments; which leaves us in substantial doubt as to the efficacy and proportionality of the scheme, as well as the true legality of the private mass monitoring which will be required.
One of the biggest concerns it has is with the fact that the so far the code fails to define the methods and standards of determining what classifies as copyright infringement.
The hurried timetable will only exacerbate the problem for the DEA stipulates that the code of practice take effect 8 months from the time of Royal Assent, the Queen’s formal approval of the legislation, but according to the Open Rights Group “everything is falling behind schedule.”
This makes the situation even more dire because it means, as the Open Right’s Group points out, the tight deadlines are “continuing to cause error and uncertainty, and failing to give proper reassurance about the effect on our fundamental rights.”
The DEA mandates a very complex series of measures to deal with illegal file-sharing and its unlikely to have the proper amount of time that should be required to sort out everybody’s concerns with them all.
If people in the UK weren’t already angry that the Act was pushed through the so-called “wash-up” period, or that legislative scrutiny was squeezed into a two-hour Commons debate where only 39 of 646 MPs took part (5%), then perhaps this latest revelation that Ofcom’s code of practice is also being hurried along will make people realize that the UK is likely facing a frightening era of what Labour MP Tom Watson called “unintended consequences.”
Stay tuned.
Once again, the UK is streets ahead in backwards thinking, blind leading the blind legislation. This isn’t democracy. 5% of our elected representatives were in parliament to discuss giving away our civil liberties to protect the interests of an outdated industry. Makes me ashamed to be British. Shame on you Peter Mandleson, and anyone who listens to this evil self interested leech, and his cronies. You were kicked out of government or forced to resign 3 times. You sad sad man.