Overview of censorship and privacy on the Internet:

The UK in general is rather open to free flows of information into and out of its borders. For the most part, the UK allows most speech on the Internet but there are areas where they feel needs to be filtered out.  One is offensive pornographic material that the UK determines is indecent they have tried filter out on the Internet as well as from other mediums of communication.  In the past they also censored many groups in Northern Ireland.  Yet with all this prohibited transfers of information, the UK has signed on to the EU Data Protection Directive.  This allows for the protection of customers data but not complete protection of privacy for British citizens.  Recently the British Parliament passed the Regulation Of Investigatory Powers Act which allows British law enforcement to filter through communications on the internet to find cyber-crimes. There are some people who feel that this is violation of their human rights and brought suits against the British government.

 The UK does not have a written constitution with amendments for human rights as the US constitution. The Parliament has the authority to legislate how human rights are to be administered. For the most part the UK has followed the European Convention of Human Rights. [1]  There are two areas of censorship where the UK differs. One is in the area of complete journalists freedom in Northern Ireland and the other is the ban on most pornographic material in the UK.

The conflict in Northern Ireland has been a difficult one for the press of the UK. This is because of several acts the British parliament has passed to restrict reports from sources they deem to have terrorist connections. Since 1974 reporting the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and Sinn Fenn has been excluded. This was type of censorship caused by the Republic’s Broadcasting Act banned a number of groups from appearing on TV and Radio. Also this ban censored many news reports from the presective of the IRA, Sinn Fenn as well as the Pro-British factions. [2]

There are other laws in Britain that enforce censorship that were designed to restrict access to the journalists. One is the Prevention of Terrorism Act that builds on the Broadcasting Act which forbids dissemination of terrorist material within the UK. This has been an area where the British government has restricted the amount of information that IRA and Pro-British groups can disseminate.  Another is the Official Secrets Act which is not an act that directly enforces censorship.  It is based on the need to keep national security secrets away from potential enemies.  The US has similar laws that keep information from being disseminated that the US government feels violates national security.  As with the US, many UK journalists feel that these laws go too far.  According to the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights 1999 Annual Report, they found that the Act was too broad and allowed the government suppression any information that it claims to be of no public concern. [3]  It also has been reported that in Northern Ireland the British police have used this act to have journalists hand over their notes and to reveal their sources. [4]

These Acts besides having many court challenges have affected the dissemination of information on the Internet. In many cases, the UK has used these acts to stop not only news stories but also internet sites devoted to the issues in Northern Ireland. One case was the Irish Republican Web Action Committee site which was hosted by GeoCities. GeoCities is an American company that hosts free websites for private individuals. The site was taken down because it did not meet the GeoCities “Content Guidelines violation.” This is one of the self-regulation systems that GeoCities put in to keep the UK government from heavily regulating the site. GeoCities felt that if they had not taken this “hate site” off it would have been censored by the UK government under the Prevention of Terrorism Act. [5]

 The UK has one of the strictest obscenity laws in Europe.  The law covers film, television, and publications. British law prohibits the distribution of pornography for financial gain under the Obscene Publications Act of 1959.  This Act was further amended  in 1994 to include computer-related pornography. [6]

 This Act included Internet broadcast of pornography as well as cable.  Before this Act, American cable and Internet companies were broadcasting pornography through their networks under the eyes of the government. [7]  Although this changed in a court ruling in July 1999, which let the British police filter out pornographic material that they feel is in violation of this law. The Judge in this case ruled that even though the broadcasting of this material was from the US it was still under the jurisdiction of UK. [8]  This ruling has lead to ISPs setting up a code of practice lead to not violate this law.  Therefore, many of the ISPs self filter out these types of pornographic websites. [9]

 This is also designed to filter out child pornography. Also the UK has a child pornography law that also includes child pornography being transmitted on the Internet. This is considered to be a “cyber-crime”.

Data Protection Act:

 The UK which is part of the EU has signed on to the EU Data Protection Directive.  They did the by enacting the Data Protection Act of 1998.  This laws allows the a UK citizen to not have to give up personal information on the internet as well as letting internet companies sell that information without permission from the internet consumer.  Many ISP’s and other e-business protect the privacy of their customers to certain extent. (This excludes the selling of names, addresses and market histories of  consumers.) It is monitored by the Data Protection Commissioner which is an independent agency that enforces the Act. [10]

As part of being in the EU the UK has to enforce this Data Privacy Directive.  This means that UK companies have to meet these standards to trade within the EU.  Also other countries not in EU must meet these standards as well.  The US and EU have come to a tentative agreement that companies could become a ‘safe harbor’ if they meet certain guidelines. [11]

 The UK has enforced the Data Protection Act. One case that is ongoing is with the Internet retailer Amazon.com. The Commissioner is prosecuting Amazon.co.uk for  violating this act by releasing data about their consumers which is a violation of the Data Protection Act. This prosecution coincides with a decision in the US to omit the promise of not selling information about their customers. Many believe that is the first real test of this act involving E-commerce. [12]

Although the UK has followed the EU Directive on Human Rights and has the Human Rights Act of 1998 which has a provision for privacy, the UK does use public surveillance for purposes of law enforcement.  For example there are hundreds of Closed Circuit Television cameras used to monitor for crimes in the UK. As well as liberal wire tapping laws that allow British law enforcement personnel to wire tap with a low standard of proof of a crime. [13]

There are certain laws like child pornography laws and other “cyber-crimes” that are hard for law enforcement in general to handle on the Internet. For the most part there were no laws stating that an ISP or company had to give up data about an individual to the British government without a warrant until now.

 The Regulation Of Investigatory Powers Act, (RIP) essentially lets law enforcement agencies without a warrant gain access to e-mails, encryption technology and data from both ISPs and companies. This  leaves no way for a company to protect against the privacy of both their employees and clients and This has sent shock waves not only through the UK but also the EU. [14]

 Many E-commerce companies feel that the Tony Blair government which until now was very pro-internet has squashed much of the E-commerce growth in the UK because of this law. Essentially this law lets the government find any or all information about individuals or companies. This means, as many have argued, that a person loses their anonymity with this law since the government can get this information from any ISP or company. [15]

  Also there are lawsuits that have been filed in the EU over this bill because many feel that it violates the EU privacy directive that was created in the UK’s Human Right’s Act of 1998. This act provides for the right of privacy from unlawful prosecution. Many feel that RIP violates this piece of legislation and are hoping that the EU can the force UK to repeal this legislation. Many are saying that this violates the Human Right’s Act and have brought it to the attention of the European Convention and there are planned lawsuits. [16]

 The UK has an interesting view of censorship and privacy.  They feel that a certain amount of free speech is allowed.  Yet it is not protected as shown in the Northern Ireland case.  They also have a very strong law against pornography.  Since there is no written constitution there are no protections of free speech.  Although the government has a reserved respect for it. As for privacy the UK is the same way.  The Data Protection Act allows for private companies to not use their information about UK citizens unless that the citizen agree to it.  Yet they passed a law that reverses this idea where the government can collect information without the UK citizen knowing.  In general, UK’s laws contradict one another in the case of privacy and censorship issues.
 

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