[Free-sklyarov-uk] Does collapse of RIP enhancement make any difference?

[Danny O'Brien]

On Wed, Jun 19, 2002 at 02:56:44AM +0100, Martin Keegan wrote:
> On Tue, 18 Jun 2002, James Radley wrote:
> 
> > Of course, now that the Home Secretary has managed his massive U-Turn on
> > this -- and with it still making the front page of some papers -- everybody
> > now knows that the Food Standards Agency, Post Office and the Fire Brigade
> > are *NOT* currently allowed to read their email. Hopefully this will make
> > their adhoc requests harder.
> 
> Yes - unfortunately they also think this means that such agencies are not
> getting this information; statements from the Home Office imply that the
> RIP Act (with the now postponed extensions enabled) would merely
> regularise existing practice.

There's some talk on ukcrypto on this issue - here's Richard Clayton's
detailed explanation of current practice, at least from the POV of an
ISP
http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/pipermail/ukcrypto/2002-June/019262.html

A quick summary (as I interpret it) is that Trading Standards office,
the police and the benefits people *can* require access under separate
legislation.  In Richard's experience at an ISP, this is usually
subscriber data (ie "who is behind this e-mail address?").

Other authorities can *ask* for data, on the basis of preventing crime,
and the ISPs aren't *forbidden* from handing over private info (as they
would normally be by the Data Protection Act). But they aren't obliged
to tell them - and are  in a much safer position themselves legally if
they ask the requesters concerned to go to the police and get a warrant.

Trawling through traffic data, as the RIP Order would statutorily allow,
would  generally be refused by ISPs without a warrant. The RIP order
would also mean that ISPs and others would not be able to refuse such an
order. A very different state of affairs.

The LINX Privacy Best Current Practice is worth reading if you have the time.
http://www.linx.net/noncore/bcp/privacy-bcp.html

It looks like it would still be useful to determine what individual ISP
policy is in the gray areas.


d.