Privacy group says online tracking ‘dangerous'

UK-- Privacy International has called the deep packet inspection (DPI) techniques used in online targeted advertising a “dangerous and potentially unlawful technique that is fraught with unethical practice”.

The privacy group said it was concerned about the increase in DPI and called on the UK government to “legislate in a way that protects the rights of the general public”.

“There is an urgent need,” Privacy International said, “for the EU and US Congress to recognise that the entire online economy is shifting its business model in the direction of communications interception, almost always at the expense of privacy rights.”

Privacy International said it was “deeply concerned” that the mobile industry was showing signs of introducing DPI and warned that the technology could have even greater privacy threats in this sector, as companies would be able to merge account, communications and location data with browsing habits.

The organisation called for tougher legal action against companies that break privacy laws, and said “the lack of action against BT Group in the UK with regard to covert trials of deep packet inspection must never be repeated”.

Last week, the European Commission commenced infringement proceedings against the UK government over the way EU privacy laws have been implemented.

The action followed complaints that were made after BT admitted to having secretly tested technology developed by Phorm, which tracks the websites an internet user visits to match them with relevant advertising.

Phorm, for its part, says its technology is “fully compliant” with the relevant UK and EU directives – however two major website owners, Wikimedia and Amazon, have told the company they do not want their pages scanned for use by the targeting system.

Author: James Verrinder