Government scraps unified ‘Big Brother’ database – will ISPs pick up the bill instead?

ISPs have reacted with guarded optimism to Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, pulling back on controversial plans to store all details of a subscriber’s web and email traffic on a single, unified database.

The ISPs are still legally obliged to record details of a person’s web viewing habits – including what IPTV they have consumed, which sites they have visited and whom they have emailed (but not the content of the email) – but now each ISP will be tasked with running its own database.

There was concern among privacy campaigners, web users and ISPs that a single, government-run database would collate so much information in one place that it would be incredibly costly, unwieldy and prone to attack. Privacy campaigners are pointing out that even though a single database is not being built, existing law still compromises privacy. In fact, Privacy International is accusing the government of the kind of snooping tactics they would traditionally accuse the Chinese or Russian government of.

Who will pay?

Nevertheless, the issue for ISPs now is who will pay for the extra database space each will have to set up, maintain and operate. As the Internet Service Providers Association points out, the main point now is “the importance of cost recovery”.

The association is not getting a great deal of help from the Government. Jacqui Smith has pointed out she realises the new law places a ‘burden’ on ISPs for which there will be ‘recompense’ but has also claimed that the £2bn being set aside over the next 10 years to implement the law will largely go on ‘project costs’ rather than compensation for ISPs.

So, the next step will almost certainly be some horse trading between the Government and ISPs. Whilst on the one hand, internet providers are relieved they are not having to release sensitive customer data to a unified database outside of their control, they are obviously concerned the Government has backed away from plans for its own expensive solution without offering clear guidance on how ISPs retaining data, but making it available to the authorities, will be funded.

EU web confrontation

Talking of horse trading, the EU parliament and Commission are set for a showdown. Whilst the Commission is trying to come up with a law to give content owners better protection online, the EU parliament is framing another law to make internet access a human right.

This would obviously mean that it would be illegal to cut the internet connection of persistent file sharer. The two are at loggerheads with a solution required before June’s parliamentary elections.

Tags: EU, EU Commission, EU parliament, Home Office, ISP, ISPA, Jacqui Smith, Privacy, Privacy International