EU may take UK to court over Phorm

The European Commission is said to be taking legal action against the UK government over the alleged breach of data protection under EU law.

This has come about through the problems created by BT and the targeted web advertising company Phorm, when they conducted secret trails of the system on BT’s own customers.

It is believed that the EU Telecoms Commissioner, Viviane Reding, will be calling for the UK law to be changed, to make sure that confidential communications are provided by not allow the interception and surveillance of such data without the user’s consent.

This move follows months of communications between the UK government and the EU, yet it seems that the UK government was not able to answer the questions fully and the commission is concerned that there is not an independent body to deal with interceptions.