The All Party Parliamentary Communications Group (apComms) is an independent group of MPs and Lords, from all political parties, which seeks to encourage debate on a range of communications issues, have published the findings of its public inquiry “Can we keep our hands off the Net?”

The report makes refreshing reading, and makes some good points. It includes 11 recommendations for the government: -

1. A recommendation for a Green Paper on Privacy, with a view to bringing forward a Privacy Bill in the next Parliament that sets out simply expressed, but far-reaching, protection for everyone’s privacy in both the offline and online worlds

2. A recommendation to terminate the current policy-making process on what should be done about illegal file sharing; restarting it once the EU has finished negotiating the “Telecoms Package”. Future policy, the report clearly states, should not include the disconnection of end users, because this is not in the slightest bit consistent with policies that attempt to promote eGovernment

apComms go as far as to say the Government should “terminate their current policy-making process, and restart it with a new consultation once the EU has made its decisions.”

What I enjoyed about this topic was apComms took lots of evidence from the entertainment industry wanting ISPs to be forced to do more to tackle the problem of illegal filesharing. They agreed it was a problem but still concluded that “much of the problem with illegal sharing of copyrighted material has been caused by the rightsholders, and the music industry in particular, being far too slow in getting their act together and making popular legal alternatives available.”

3. Recommendations on behavioural advertising to ensure that it is only operated on an explicit, informed, opt-in basis. UKCCIS should consider further regulations to apply to behavioural advertising that is aimed at children and young people.

Phorm was centre of the debate here and apComms were disappointed that despite a request sent to Google to submit evidence on this issue and others, it didn’t (as they say, disappointing considering it is market leader on online advertising) My favourite quote here was from The Foundation for Information Policy Research (FIPR) “On the issue of behavioural advertising and Phorm, I will simply reiterate the comment of FIPR’s General Counsel, Nicholas Bohm: it is amazing that the Home Office gave out free legal advice [ It said Phorm’s service does not fall foul of RIPA] and disappointing that it was so inaccurate.” apComms note that, the Home Office does not make the law of the land, nor does it usually set out to interpret its meaning.

4. A recommendation that eSafety should be included in the core school curriculum, with appropriate topics being taught at Key Stages 1 through 4. Also, the Government should establish a national coordinating body to ensure that eSafety messages and teaching remain up-to-date.

5. A recommendation that network operators and retail outlets cooperate in providing point-of-sale literature on eSafety messages for mobile phones. The report also recommends that, for reasons of clarity, Ofcom should ensure that child protection filters are enabled by default for every type of mobile Internet access device, whether they be handsets or “dongles”.

6. A recommendation that the Government, in consultation with the EU Commission, establish whether the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) should extend its “notice and take-down” mechanisms to the whole world, and if not, work to establish such a global system.

I agreed here with the views put forward by the OpenRights Group who are generally anti blocking and think illegal content should be dealt with at source and not by an approach which just pretends it’s not there. This echoes my own view expressed in ‘Filtering out child porn — smoke and mirrors?’ – (2004) 6 EBL 10, 11 – where I said “surely the approach should not be to block access to these sites but to remove the sites themselves…These laws and filtering programmes, although good PR for those involved, arguably merely hide it away, rather than actually do anything about the problem itself.”

This was a view supported to a degree by the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) who made a point to the committee that “The current strategic focus is on the product (i.e. images and content) rather than behaviour. Consequently ‘blocking’ is a tool rather than a solution to child sexual abuse and exploitation where technology is a factor, as it does not take into account developments in how offenders use technology and the fact that websites are no longer the primary mechanism for the distribution of child abuse material.” This final point is a very good one, and one often glossed over in the clammer for headlines grabbing announcements.

7. A recommendation that the Government does not legislate to enforce the deployment of blocking systems based on the IWF lists. This has the potential to damage future attempts to fix problems through self-regulation, and will thus, in the long term, be counterproductive.

8. A recommendation that Ofcom keep the issue of “network neutrality” under review and include a section in each annual report that indicates whether there are any signs of change.

9. A recommendation that Ofcom regulate to require ISPs to advertise a minimum guaranteed speed for broadband connections.

10. A recommendation for a voluntary code for ISPs relating to the detection of, and effective dealing with, malware infected machines in the UK. If this voluntary approach fails to yield results in a timely manner, then Ofcom should unilaterally create and impose such a code on the UK ISP industry.

11. A recommendation that the law be revised, so that ISPs can to take proactive steps to detect and remove inappropriate content from their services, without completely losing important legal immunities which fit with their third party role in hosting and distributing content.