CyberLaw Blog

Archive for the ‘Parliament’ Category

MPs to probe ISP snooping and throttling: “

Who woke them up?

MPs have today launched an investigation into the use of snooping technology by ISPs which allows them to profile customers for advertisers and throttle or block specific types of traffic.…

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(Via The Register – Comms.)

How the government uses dirty data to legislate morality: “

So what’s a standard deviation?

When it comes to sex and censorship, Government’s insistence that laws are ‘evidence-based’ is little more than hot air.…

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(Via The Register – Public Sector.)

Here we go again…. More nonsense criminal provisions introduced based on previous nonsense provisions. The below provisions were introduced within the Coroners and Justice Bill on 14 January, 2009. Note clauses 48-56.

The following text has been taken from the Explanatory Note for the Coroners And Justice Bill.

For the progress of the Bill see the Parliament pages.

The Bill itself can be accessed here.

Note also the Ministry of Justice pages on the Coroners and Justice Bill.

Clause 48 and Schedule 10: Encouraging or assisting suicide: providers of information society services

332. Clause 48 and Schedule 10 ensure that the provisions outlined in clauses 46 and 47 above are consistent with the UK’s obligations under the E-Commerce Directive.

333. Schedule 10 ensures that providers of information society services who are established in England, Wales or Northern Ireland are covered by the offence of encouraging or assisting suicide even when they are operating in other European Economic Area states. Paragraphs 4 to 6 of the Schedule provide exemptions for internet service providers from the offence in limited circumstances, such as where they are acting as mere conduits for information that is capable, and provided with the intention, of encouraging or assisting suicide or are storing it as caches or hosts.

Clause 49: Prohibited images

334. Subsection (1) creates a new offence in England and Wales and Northern Ireland of possession of a prohibited image of a child.

335. Subsections (2) to (8) set out the definition of a “prohibited image of a child”. Under subsection (2) in order to be a prohibited image, an image must be pornographic, fall within subsection (6) and be grossly offensive, disgusting or otherwise of an obscene character. The definition of “pornographic” is set out in subsection (3). An image must be of such a nature that it must reasonably be assumed to have been produced solely or mainly for the purpose of sexual arousal. Whether this threshold has been met will be an issue for a jury to determine. Subsection (4) makes it clear that where (as found in a person’s possession) an individual image forms part of a series of images, the question of whether it is pornographic must be determined by reference both to the image itself and the context in which it appears in the series of images.

336. Subsection (5) expands on subsection (4). It provides that, where an image is integral to a narrative (for example a mainstream or documentary film) which when it is taken as a whole could not reasonably be assumed to be pornographic, the image itself may be not be pornographic, even though if considered in isolation the contrary conclusion would have been reached.

337. Subsection (6) and (7) provide that a prohibited image for the purposes of the offence is one which focuses solely or principally on a child’s genitals or anal region or portrays any of a list of acts set out in subsection (7).

338. Subsection (8) provides that for the purposes of subsection (7) penetration is a continuing act from entry to withdrawal.

339. Subsection (9) requires proceedings to be instituted by or with the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions.

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MPs declare their ignorance on the web: “

If they’re not ranting, they’re bumbling

Comment The times, they may be changing on the internet, but if our Parliament has anything to do with it, that change is unlikely to be for the better. The problem is that far too many MP’s not only don’t get it when it comes to the net, they actively bask in their ignorance of new technology.…

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(Via The Register – Public Sector.)

Web firms should screen content, says Parliamentary committee: “Websites which accept user-generated content should do more to screen out content that might be harmful to the public, a Parliamentary committee has warned. Sites should also publish prominent terms and conditions banning harmful content, it said.”

(Via OUT-LAW News.)

House of Commons debate on Internet Regulation, 4 June, 2008

Column 893
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn. —[Mr. Watts.]
7.32 pm

John Robertson (Glasgow, North-West) (Lab): I am pleased to have the chance to discuss internet content and internet service providers with my hon. Friend the Minister for Energy, not least because I have been trying to secure this debate for several months. I know that, like me, many of my colleagues regularly receive correspondence from constituents who are worried about internet content, and I have been especially keen to discuss those matters following the Byron review, but on several occasions I have been told by the Table Office that there is no Department appropriate to field such a debate. The strategy of representatives of each Department that we tried to assign it to has been to hold up its hands in affront and deny any responsibility for the matter.

My worry is that that is an allegory of the current situation relating to responsibility for internet content, and that the excuse is, sadly, endemic. ISPs claim to be mere inanimate conduits; search engines plead their neutrality; Ofcom has intentionally been denied any remit for content; other UK Executive and regulatory bodies, including the police, have powers over only a tiny minority of websites; and the Internet Watch Foundation is limited in the subjects it monitors and by the international nature of the internet. As a result, the various initiatives that have been implemented are piecemeal and inadequate, and the internet stands out as an anomaly against similar media as a place where, essentially, anything goes. It is a paradox that the efforts of ISPs to deal with illegal content are a strong argument for regulating them, as we see that the tools they have are the most effective method of controlling material online.

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Computer Misuse Act changes are delayed further: “Denial of service attacks will not be criminalised in England and Wales for another six months despite measures lying unused in existing laws since 2006. Changes to the Computer Misuse Act will not be activated until October.”

(Via OUT-LAW News.)

I have yet to receive any confirmation of this but I assume secondary legislation and further guidelines will be drawn before the extreme pornography provisions come into force following the enactment of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill.

BBC – Newsbeat: “Last Updated: Thursday, 8 May 2008, 08:29 GMT 09:29 UK Violent porn ban gets the green light, By Hannah Morrison, Newsbeat reporter”

Today a new law gets the final go-ahead which will make it illegal to own violent porn. From next January extreme videos, photos and online material will be banned.

That includes any image where it looks like someone’s life could be in danger or where parts of their body could be seriously hurt.

The government’s making it a crime to own this stuff because it thinks looking at these images could encourage violent behaviour.

But critics say it’s going to make criminals out of people who look at violent porn with no intention of harming anyone.

Here are two very different views on the changes.
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Lords give extreme porn bill a final reading: “

Brace for dirty book burnings, smut amnesties

It must be ever so vexing to pass a law that you think will make you the most popular boy in class – only to be greeted by a mass chorus of ‘you still stink!’.…

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That seems to have been the case with the abolition of the 10p rate of tax, and it may yet come to pass with government legislation on extreme porn.

Of course, it isn’t law yet. The Criminal Justice Bill – of which it is part – receives the Royal Assent tomorrow (8 May). But the sections on extreme porn only become operative on their allotted commencement date. That has not yet been set.

In fact, it may never be set. One unhappy feature of this government’s approach to law-making is that some laws are passed, and then forgotten, without ever being put into effect.

Could that happen with extreme porn? Or at least, with this incarnation of the law?

Read the full article through the Register website….

(Via The Register – Public Sector.)

BBC NEWS | England | Berkshire | Mother’s porn law campaign ends: “Mother’s porn law campaign ends”

A mother whose daughter was murdered by a man addicted to violent internet porn has completed her fight to have such images banned.

Jane Longhurst, 31, was strangled by Graham Coutts, 39, from Hove, Sussex. He was jailed for at least 26 years.

Her mother Liz, from Berkshire, backed by Reading West MP Martin Salter, campaigned for three years to ban violent online porn.

The ban is part of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill.
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