Earlier today, I came across a Tender proposal from the BBC.
The BBC are planning to use IP (your internet address) metadata (trails of data you leave when searching or connecting to something on the net).
This could be a huge mistake by the Corporation. It’s obviously an attempt to track user to their online services such as iPlayer but they may hit a legally sticky wicket (unless we’ve allowed it by agreeing to their terms and conditions).
The licensing rules changed a while back now to incorporate the advancements in technology, such as smart phones, Consoles, laptops, PCs and Tablets, and if you own one of these you have to get a TV License… Hardly seems fair especially if you don’t want to watch their bias viewpoints, support their (now previous) condoning of pedophilia (i.e. Jimmy Saville, Rolph Harris, Tony Blackburn – to name the ones that got caught) within their organization. Not to mention the controversial siding with Israel during the horrific attacks on gaza whilst the Israeli Director General was in charge…
In the late 90’s (thats 1990’s) it was made illegal to track peoples IP addresses (DPA) but the European Court of Justice in 2016 has turned that around.
The European Court of Justice (ECJ) [official website] ruled [judgment] Wednesday that a website operator is legally permitted to store visitors’ Internet protocol addresses (IP addresses) because they have a legitimate interest in protecting themselves against cyber attacks. Under EU law, personal information can be processed [EU press release] if it is necessary to accomplish a legitimate objective and if it does not override the person’s fundamental freedoms. The ruling is also applicable to some dynamic IP addresses, which are IP addresses that change with every change in Internet connection. The court found that a dynamic IP address is personal data if the website operator is also able to obtain additional information from the visitor through the internet service provider.
https://www.jurist.org/news/2016/10/eu-top-court-rules-website-operators-can-store-visitors-ip-addresses/
The biggest problem is the wording, “legitimate interest” any interest could be easily ‘spun’ into being legitimate.
The BBC requires Services to provide the look-up capability to discover metadata about Internet Protocol (“IP”) addresses, including geographical location, in order to assist the BBC in protecting content on its online services, targeting its online products including BBC iPlayer, and for other related purposes, at the BBC’s discretion.
The BBC requires the Services to provide unlimited capability (i.e. without a usage limit) for a term of 3 (three) years with an option to renew twice by up to 12 (twelve) months on each occasion.
The BBC requires the Services to provide a database of raw data that the BBC may access using its own applications and/or using the Supplier’s application(s), however the Services must not be a hosted software as a service solution.
The BBC requires the Services to be proven to be sufficiently flexible to take account of the constantly evolving market for IP metadata services and the emergence of new functional and non-functional requirements.
The BBC expects to take a role in product development in relation to the Services in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Agreement.
https://www.sell2wales.gov.wales/search/show/Search_View.aspx?id=MAR392378
This could also end up being a big waste of money for the BBC (contract worth is £675,000 GPB).
The reason I am saying this is
1. Geo location might not be as accurate as they want. In fact they may have to do a lot of digging – or tracking the data packets to their software (iPlayer) which (could) mean(s) a big invasion of privacy. – Seriously go to your favourite search engine, type in “whats my IP)” and see where it says you are!
– Yes there are ways of getting a more precise location but, is it worth it? It’s time consuming… very time consuming.
2. It could be the “CD security” (where £5 million worth of research was put into stopping pcs and laptops being able to play music discs, which in turn was circumvented by a 0.59 pence sharpie by running the sharpie around the first set of marks on a cd rendering the software useless) mistake of the BBC…
All you need is a little know how, a VPN (like TOR) and it’ll be like looking for an invisible needle in a haystack!