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British government "colluding" with Phorm

Posted By TelecomTV One , 28 April 2009 | 5 Comments | (0)
Tags: Phorm privacy

There's fresh and disquieting evidence today that the tentacles of Phorm (the so-called "deep packet inspection" company) reach deep indeed - straight into the heart of the British government, writes Martyn Warwick.

The news has come to light after a member of the public made a request to see emails sent between Phorm and the UK Home Office (the British equivalent of a Ministry of the Interior) under the Freedom of Information Act and then passed them on to the BBC.

It transpires that since August 2007, one of the UK's three great Ministries of State has been in regular email contact (and who knows by whatever other means of communication) with a commercial, for-profit company whose snooping technology is causing considerable anger and opposition amongst Britain's Internet users.

The released emails show that Phorm approached the Home Office and asked the ministry for its "view" on the company and "informal guidance" as to whether or not the Phorm "Webwise" behavioural profiling software is legal in the UK.

The Home Office responded by asking Phorm for full technical details about its software and thereafter a cosy electronic relationship sprang up between the two parties. Emails from Phorm's legal team show that the company repeatedly pressed the Home office to confirm that  the British government "has no objection to the marketing and operation of the Phorm product in the UK".

In an e-mail of August 2007, an anonymous Home Office functionary contacted Phorm's legal department and wrote, "My personal view accords with yours, that even if it is "interception", which I am doubtful of, it is lawfully authorised under Section 3 by virtue of the user's consent obtained in signing up to the ISPs terms and conditions."

In a later e-mail dated 22 January 2008, another apparatchik wrote "I should be grateful if you would review the attached document, and let me know what you think."

By January last year, civil servants were even "thanking" Phorm for comments and changes to its draft paper, which show the company was permitted to alter, adapt and cut parts of the  document itself.

Most damningly of all, in another email another "anonymous" mandarin writes "If we agree this, and this becomes our position do you think your clients and their prospective partners will be comforted?"

In other words, the Home Office is considering using Phorm's own arguments and rationale vis a vis Webwise to sell the deep packet concept to the general public and is so deeply involved with Phorm's management and commercial aspirations that it actually asks the company if it's happy with the ministry's approach.

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How compromised, how partial and how cynical is that?

And if any further or more damning evidence of the depth of the collusion between the British government and Phorm is needed, take note that some of the emails emanated from the Security and Counter Terrorism section at the Home Office. This surely is prima facie evidence that the government is interested in deep packet inspection technology for its own surveillance purposes.

It should also be remembered that the Home Office is the government department tasked with defining policy to protect people's privacy not to put it in even greater jeopardy than it is at the moment by getting into bed with a leading protagonist of a surveillance technology that will compromise individual privacy.

Amongst those heading the opposition to Phorm in parliament is Baroness Miller, a Liberal Democrat spokesperson on Home Affairs. This morning she said, "My jaw dropped when I saw the Freedom of Information exchanges. Anything the Home Office now says about Phorm is completely tainted ."

Calling the Home Office's clandestine exchanges with Phorm "cynical, she continued, "The fact the Home Office actually asks the very company they are worried is falling outside the law whether the draft interpretation of the law is correct is completely bizarre."

For its part, the Home Office denies that it gave "any advice to Phorm directly relating to possible criminal liability for the operation of their advertising platform in the UK".

Meanwhile, in a letter to the Guradian newspaper Phorm's CEO, Kent Ertugrul, insists that there is no "collusion" between his company and the British government.

He writes, "This is untrue and misrepresents the way in which the British legal system works. He also says that the "advice" Phorm got from the Home Office was "an informed opinion on ISP-based targeted advertising", adding, "in the United Kingdom it is for the courts to decide what is or is not legal, not the Home Office".

Significantly he also insists that it is "misleading to invent a link between Phorm's innovative technology and the Government's plans for counterterrorism". So exactly where is the "invention", Mr. Ertugrul?

Nonetheless it is evident that the CEO has been rattled by recent events, The company has launched a new website, "Stop Phoul Play" designed, Ertugrul says, to put a stop to "orchestrated smears" against Phorm. Take a look - it's enlightening.

The site says, "Phorm has been the subject of a smear campaign orchestrated by a small but dedicated band of online "privacy pirates" who appear very determined to harm our company."

Of which more tomorrow...... but first I have to go out to the garden and smell the roses in an effort to get the stench of a rotten government out of my nostrils.

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5 comments (Add Yours) - click here to sign in

(1) 28 April 2009 14:16:48 by simon torrance

..."simplify, then exaggerate" is a common journalistic approach. From what you've written above, I think you're trying to whip up a scandal when there isn't one at all! Seems all above board, based on what you've written...


(2) 28 April 2009 14:27:06 by Keith Willetts

Ah c'mon Simon, if local councils can use anti-terrorist legislation to check on what you are putting in your dustbin and we are all on CCTV 300 times a day, its really not a big stretch to imagine the UK Govenment wanting to snoop on your e-mails is it? Interesting to hear they have now dropped the idea of a single snoopers database though - preseumably they worked out the storrage costsd and decided to let the phone companies and ISP's to do it for them.


(3) 28 April 2009 16:20:40 by Hugh Roberts

Healthy cynicism in all directions? This is getting a touch NotW for my liking... (more humour and less invective please - as per your large and largely excellent number of comments on the world of telecoms in the past)

Having said that, there are some real issues here that need to be societally addressed from an ethical standpoint and not from a commercial one. Please bear in mind that there is nothing new about the software, algorythms and metadata management deployed - these have been around for at least 20 years and are an integral part of many gaming envrionments - the issue is the use to which such psychometric analysis is put. In this respect the questions of legality and colusion become highly significant. With regard to discussions over whether or not the software is legal or illegal, it would be a bit naieve to think that governmental communications (particularly when devolved below the levels of mandarins) don't take on a life of their own that can be open to interpretation in whatever way anyone wishes to do so...

As an aside, if you want to see something much more scary, have a look at the US Republican party's BI system: VoterVault.


(4) 28 April 2009 18:21:07 by Stephen Fleece

With all the scandal around Phorm and its association with DPI, I assert the need to better educate the broader industry and public that packet inspection technology (DPI) by itself is not bad nor evil. DPI can be a very good useful and good management technology to prevent and fix service quality problems that affect consumer's enjoyment of communications services. It can unique address serious security threats to end users, along with many other noble purposes.

DPI is like nuclear technology--it can be used for good or bad by the minds and hands that work with it. It is how the information that DPI passively collects is stored, secured, and used downstream that stirs the question of appropriateness.


(5) 28 April 2009 23:22:36 by Roy Brown

When looking at the new 'Phoulplaythemanandnottheball' site, you will find no better example of how off-beam (to put it charitably) Phorm are.

It's represented on their site under 'This is how they work' as "Several individuals well known for their virulent stance on Phorm - including Alexander Hanff, Dephormation, Florence and Oblonsky – attacked the author in unsavoury and intimidating language."

But if you follow the link which Phouldeeds handily provide, you find no such thing.

Instead, you find Blackbeak initially presenting an 'Is Phorm so bad?' argument based on his natural disbelief that a respectable AIM-listed company (Phorm) would provide such a skewed and distorted picture of their system to the public, and that a major FTSE-100 company like BT would carry out illegal acts on its customers.

And then you see the people listed above, and others, using the most moderate language, sweet reason and the catalogue of unavoidable facts to try to help Blackbeak to see things as they really are.

And thus encouraged, and having looked up the many references given to him, and engaged in some very constructive debate with those who wrote the comments, he changes his mind, and writes a further article describing exactly what is wrong with Phorm; for which our protagonists thank him nicely.

No threats, no intimidation, not even any harsh words, and certainly no money changing hands; just logic and good information holding sway.

To anyone reading the Phoulandmephitic site, all you have to say is 'Please - follows the links they give. And then judge for yourself if it backs up their claims - or, as in this case, backfires on them.