MN Confidential?

[Pan]

How far does this go?
I ask as society becomes more complex, and this is inpart due to the internet. And as we proudly know, the incidence of MN in the life of the nation is growing.......!

Some threads and posts can be controversial, and sometimes veer towards the 'actionable'. We have seen this.

But where do we stand regarding being exposed to "security services" having access to poster's personal details?>

We know that some posters express views that are not consistent with govt. policy, and sometimes sail in the opposite direction.

And it's ok to suspect that should "security services" feel a need to access details, they may have the techie-power to illegally find personal details of posters.

But, how far does MNHQ's resonsibilites go in helping to identify to govt agencies, legally, individual posters?

[heresiarch]

First off some caveats:

1. I'm not a lawyer
   
2. it's been a while since I was involved in this sort of thing so the legislation might've moved on
   
3. I don't speak for mumsnet
   
4. I've had a fair amount to drink tonight
   
   All that being said, though, as I understand it then MN has two competing obligations. The first is that, absent a court order, MN is obliged to keep the identity of its posters reasonably confidential. This is governed by the Data Protection Act amongst others. The police can ask for such information but I don't think that MN is required to divulge it. But bear in mind that there's asking and then there's asking.
   
   However, given a court order, then MN will be obliged to give up any and all information it has about specific members. This will likely be the details you entered when you registered including the email address, and likely the IP address(es) you have posted from. If you have used your home broadband connection for posting then the IP addresss will likely be traceable to your home address.
   
   The question therefore rests on what constitutes grounds for a court order and what doesn't. At present it requires either reasonable suspicion of a crime being committed or (in practise) any suspicion whatsoever of something related to terrorism, espionage or child pornography.
   
   Note that the police could obtain a court order saying they think that there's terrorist involvement (and, so far, it appears that there's a fairly low bar for such an order) then subsequently "discover" there's no terrorist involvement at all but still bring a prosecution for something their investigation subsequently uncoverered.
   
   It is very likely that as time goes on the right to privacy for ones online utterances will be eroded. If you don't want it to be public knowledge then don't post it online.

[Pan]

Well, thanks heresiarch!

It's the bit about your last para. that galls a bit i.e. I DO want what posters say to be public, but not necessarily traceable to the utter-er...there is a massive space between what is poss. subject to a court order, and what is 'collected' by spook-types. Wherein does MN's responsibilities lie?

[heresiarch]

There was talk a while ago that Internet Service Providers would be required to collect and store information about which of their subscribers accessed what website. I think it was part of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers (RIPA) bill. The Register has done a lot on this story.

I'm not sure of the current status of the RIPA legislation but I think it's still in force. I'm not sure if the spooks can access that information without a court order. I've got a vague memory that they can, or at least they were saying that they should. If they want to know what you're doing on those websites, or what emails you're sending, that would require a court order.

One thing to keep an eye on is the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). That's a scary project being discussed between countries to form a world-wide framework for tracing and punishing copyright infringement. It's not finalised yet but the draft requirements for ACTA could open a door for the spooky-types to wade all through your Internet activities under the guise of tracking down copyright-infringement but with the goal of finding out what you're up to without the need for a pesky court order.

Ultimately MumsNet's responsibility is to stay within the law. With things as they are I don't think they'd last long if they refused to provide subscriber information in the face of a court order.

[CaptainNancy]

MNHQ have acted in the past where posters' made clear difficulties they were having... though that was involving the emergency services rather than security services.

[MaMoTTaT]

MNHQ told me the other night that if I had any more trouble from exBF on here (he appears to have buggered off for good now) and I went to the police, if the police asked them for information about the poster they had to give it.

[NickOfTime]

lol @ this. i just posted on a 'why namechange' thread about being cold war security threat habituated...

[tethersend]

[Pan]

yes I understand the issue about 'data protection' and the requirement to help in the reduction of crime.

I am referring to circs. where posters refer to ideas/events/groups that our 'spooks' friends dislike and wish to label as a 'security threat' ( for which we know there is a VERY LOW threashold). DO MN provide any details when asked. Previous postings, references to others in posts, as well as any personal info. otherwise available to MNHQ.

Any answers??

[CatherineMumsnet]

Hi Pan. We've had this question before and if asked by the police then yes, we do need to supply information.

In regards to your specific query above, that's pretty specialised and one we'll need to get a bit more imput on.

[JustineMumsnet]

Hi Pan,
Well happily the situation has never arisen - the spooks have never contacted us about any poster and the police have only once or twice in relation to domestic violence/abuse issues, for which we'd generally be happy to assist.

Broadly our policy is to comply with data protection responsibilities but not to break the law. That said, we think we'd be very happy to engage the full power of the media and Mumsnet if we felt we were being obliged to divulge information for nefarious purposes. Which I think would be quite a deterrent.

Thanks for raising it. Do let us know if you have further worries.

[Pan]

"we think we'd be very happy to engage the full power of the media and Mumsnet if we felt we were being obliged to divulge information for nefarious purposes. Which I think would be quite a deterrent."

As Monty Python would say..."SAY NO MORE!"

Thanks a lot for this. I know from some quarters that people who we pay to nosey in on others business have a pretty low threshold as to who they choose. Though I am suspecting they have the means to check out posters without bothering yourselves...IYSWIM.

thanks again for your time, and people who have put stuff into context.