Government suggests ISP mediation over web content

Government Minister for Culture and Communications Ed Vaizey has suggested that Internet Service Providers should be given powers to mediate content on the net.

Well, not so much given powers, as to have them forced upon them, as the responsibility and time taken to effectively police websites would no doubt be a considerable strain on ISPs.

Vaizey floated the idea in a Commons debate, in which he stated that he wished to organise a meeting with ISPs, Facebook and Google to discuss privacy issues, and specifically the method of redress for those folks with personal data which has been made available online.

He cited the case of a woman’s refuge centre whose address was put up online, and was then unable to persuade the site carrying it to remove it.

Vaizey said: “There may be all sorts of reasons why it was difficult to take that information down. It may be that having taken it down, the address simply popped up again elsewhere, but the fact that no meeting or dialogue could take place worries me greatly.”

“I suspect that most honourable members in the Chamber have had conversations with constituents who have seen information about them online and have simply not known where to turn.”

Vaizey’s solution is a mediation service along the lines Nominet uses to tackle disputes over Internet domain names.

Vaizey suggests: “It is certainly worth the Government brokering a conversation with the internet industry about setting up a mediation service for consumers who have legitimate concerns that their privacy has been breached or that online information about them is inaccurate or constitutes a gross invasion of their privacy to discuss whether there is any way to remove access to that information.”

However, the controversy around these proposals concerns where lines would be drawn regarding the material which people or organisations want taken down.

Could complaints be used as a form of censoring material people just don’t like, with ISPs perhaps taking some content down by default simply because they don’t have the time to properly look into the rights and wrongs of every issue?

Jim Killock, head of the Open Rights Group, told the BBC that the idea needed a rethink. He said: “What we need to hear is that the government is committed to strong data protection rules, rather than suggesting off the cuff ideas.”