Who’s a smarty – who wants to join the Pirate Party?

(With apologies to Mel Brooks, who produces puns that are so much better than mine...)

I expect that lots of people would want to join the European pirate movement, but I don’t think that I am one of them just yet. Should they be written off as “an ineffective and short term movement of anarchistic freeloaders”, or is it “an ideological presence that’s here to stay in democratic countries around the world?”

Please, before I get bombarded with complaints about these phrases, let me explain that they were the very words that were used in a recent article by Philip Hunt, the Campaigns Officer for the Pirate Party UK (in the September 2009 edition of the e-commerce law & policy journal). And, for the record, he disagreed with the first description, and supported the second.

I hope they don't mind, but I'm displaying one of their posters from their website on this blog. I don't intend to commit an offence and misuse any of their intellectual property.

What are their main concerns? Well, their website sets them out pretty clearly:

"In recent years we have seen an unprecedented onslaught on the rights of the individual. We are treated like criminals when we share entertainment digitally, even though this is just the modern equivalent of lending a book or a DVD to a friend. We look on helpless as our culture and heritage, so important for binding our society together, is eroded and privatised.

Now there is a democratic alternative. We, the people, can take back our rights. We, the people, can overturn the fat cats and the corrupt MPs who hold our nation's cultural treasures to ransom, ignore our democratic wishes and undermine our civil liberties.

The internet has turned our world into a global village. Ideas can be shared at incredible speed, and at negligible cost. The benefits are plain to see, but as a result, many vested interests are threatened. The old guard works hard to preserve their power and their privilege, so we must work hard for our freedom. The Pirate Party offers an alternative to the last century's struggles between political left and political right. We are open to anyone and everyone who wants to live in a fair and open society.

Following on from the wildfire success of our sister parties in other countries, the Pirate Party UK offers a new way to tackle society's problems, by releasing the potential of ideas, at the expense of corporate monopolies and the interests of a controlling state."

To address these concerns, the Pirate Party UK has three core policies:

• Reform copyright and patent law. We want to legalise non-commercial file sharing and reduce the excessive length of copyright protection, while ensuring that when creative works are sold, it's the artists who benefit, not monopoly rights holders. We want a patent system that doesn't stifle innovation or make life saving drugs so expensive that patients die.

• End the excessive surveillance, profiling, tracking and monitoring of innocent people by Government and big businesses.

• Ensure that everyone has real freedom of speech and real freedom to enjoy and participate in our shared culture.

What do I think about these policies?

I can understand their wish to reform copyright and patent law, as the current law does not seem to work too well in an internet environment. But copyright holders must have some rights too. I find it hard to work out for myself how the balance can be drawn between these competing rights when, thanks to the digital age, it is so easy to create perfect “copies” of property that someone else might rightly claim to own - and make their living from.

I can understand their fear of surveillance, especially if it is used to detect someone who has created a perfect “copy” of something that someone else actually owns. But I don't think that miscreants automatically have a right to hide their tracks by relying on a cloak of anonymity.

And I can understand their wish to embrace free speech – but again so long as it does not impinge on the legitimate rights of others. I sometimes have views that I keep to myself – because I don’t feel it necessary to provoke someone even though all I would wish to express was my own opinion. Others have rights not to be offended too. We still live, in Britain, in a polite society. My bit of Britain, Crouch End, is populated by people who try to behave more like Caroline Aherne's "Mrs Merton" than Catherine Tate's "Nan".

So, I will be looking out for the candidates from the Pirate Party UK as they begin to participate in mainstream British politics. I hope that their views will provoke some very interesting debates. And, as elections to the devolved assemblies in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales are run under a system of proportional representation, they might even win a seat or two in 2011.

Who hinders hoax 999 callers?

A friend of mine got in touch earlier today to ask if something had gone wrong with the phone system used by the emergency services. Apparently, he and some of his mates were down the pub last night. One of his mates had brought along an unregistered pre-pay phone, and was boasting that he could use it to make hoax calls to the emergency services, night and day, and the emergency services were incapable of stopping him. I was asked if this really was the case.

I had a quick squint on the internet to find out.

I found a press release on the Ofcom website which spreads some light on the matter. Ofcom is the communications regulator. It regulates TV and radio, fixed line telecoms and mobiles, plus the airwaves over which wireless devices operate.

On 15 October 2009, Ofcom announced that mobile phone users were now “able to call the emergency service numbers (999 and 112) from another network if their own network is unavailable and an alternative provider has coverage. The phone will automatically switch over to whichever network operator has the best signal in that area. This will provide added reassurance to consumers should they need to call 999 or 112 and will be of particular benefit to those in rural areas across the UK. The successful launch of emergency mobile roaming is the result of a joint effort between Ofcom, the mobile network operators, emergency authorities and the fixed operators who act as call handling agents.”

In the accompanying notes to editors, Ofcom explained that “consumers should be aware that emergency mobile roaming in its current form has limitations; location information is less accurate and it is not possible for the emergency services to make a return call. Callers should therefore be aware that calling the emergency services from a fixed line phone or a mobile phone from the network it is registered with remains preferable if this option is available. Consumers should also ensure that the mobile handset from which they wish to make an emergency call contains a SIM card.”

The notes to the editors didn’t point out what would happen to pranksters who thought it fun to make hoax calls to the emergency services. Before 15 October 2009, the mobile phone networks were able to act very effectively, by disconnecting the SIM cards from the network, under a “three strikes and you’re out” rule. If someone made three hoax calls to the emergency services, they were quickly disconnected by their service provider, preventing them from making any more calls to anyone, ever.

So, it seems that after 15 October 2009, if someone made three hoax calls to the emergency services, they were quickly disconnected by their service provider, which prevented their SIM card from being used to make or receive calls from their friends. But, if an alternative network provider had coverage in their area, they would be able to continue to make calls to ... you’ve guessed it ... the emergency services.

Perhaps it's time for the emergency services to create their own filtering system to block calls from known pranksters. They obviously know what SIM cards the pranksters are using, as its them who make the disconnection request to the home network service provider in the first place.

I told my friend: "Don't make hoax 999 calls - you never know when the emergency services might discover who you are."

Did you notice anyone commemorating International Data Protection Day yesterday?

I didn't, either.

Perhaps the 2011 commemorations will have a higher public profile.

Tackling serious crime - does it matter if the Human Rights Convention has stuffed the State?

In my last blog I questioned whether the state was capable of giving police sufficient powers to protect us from people like “Fred in the shed”, whose “human rights”, as granted to him by the European Convention on Human Rights, can appear to give him the edge over those he might wish to harm when he went on-line. I explained that I would use this blog to have a quick look at some of the Convention rights and freedoms and see if I can draw any conclusions as to how they might be applied to material accessed on the internet.

Article 6 provides that “It is unlawful for a public authority to act in a way which is incompatible with a Convention right.” This suggests that the police have to tread very carefully when doing anything that could be construed as observing, or interfering, with Fred. He remains innocent until there is any evidence to establish otherwise. The police therefore have to follow recognised standards of behaviour, and remain publically accountable for their actions.

Article 2(1) provides that “Everyone’s right to life shall be protected by law.” This suggests that the police ought to be able to do things to prevent Fred from committing crimes that threaten other people’s lives, but not necessarily to use those same powers to detect his involvement in absolutely all other types of crimes.

Article 5(1) provides that “Everyone has the right to liberty and security of person.” This suggests that the police have to treat Fred with the same degree of civility and respect as everyone else enjoys.

Article 8 (1) provides that “Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.” And, in 8(2), “There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.” This is the really hard one, as it’s not clear what Fred’s “correspondence” really means in an internet world. Is this just the content of his emails, or does it extend to, say, detailed records of his surfing habits on the internet too? Back in 1993, Parliament only appeared to allow service providers to keep some of Fred’s web browsing history for 4 days. In it’s Retention of Communications Data (Code of Practice) Order 2003 (SI 2003 No 3175), only certain types of web activity logs were specified as being able to be retained. They were: “Proxy server logs (date/time, IP address used, URL’s visited, services)” and the restrictions were quite clear: “The data types here will be restricted solely to Communications Data and exclude content of communication. This will mean that storage under this code can only take place to the level of www.homeoffice.gov.uk/……" and for just 4 days.

Obviously, this place somewhat of a restriction on that the state would like to do, so the Data Retention (EC Directive) Regulations 2009 (SI 2009 No 859) came into force on 6 April 2009, which appear to allow the state to require certain providers to retain more types of web activity logs, and for longer. What the state had to do was to write to the relevant providers to tell them what it wanted them to do. But it’s not clear whether these Regulations will actually provide the police with what they are after. The wording of the SI refers to “ Data necessary to trace and identify the source, the destination, the date, time and duration, [and] the type of a “communication”, together with “Data necessary to identify users’ communication equipment (or what purports to be their equipment).” So what if Fred is just surfing the internet, and not actually making a “communication” ? Is the state able to force internet service providers to retain such logs? Dunno. Perhaps an opportunity has been missed. But although the state can’t insist, it might be possible for a company (such as an internet service provider) to explain to Fred that it had decided to retain all internet records for its own marketing and customer care purposes for a set period, and then allow him to go to another internet service provider if this condition were unacceptable.

(And, if the service provider had found a way of retaining this information, the state might well consider allowing the police to use their RIPA powers to acquire it, when deemed proportionate and necessary.)

Article 10(1) provides that “Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers.” And, in 10(2), “ The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such … restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence…” This appears to mean that there should be few restrictions on just what Fred is allowed to access on the internet. Of course any links to unlawful sites must be blocked, but the state needs to exercise very great care when trying to prohibit access to – or censor - other types of material on the internet, such as those the state might find distasteful. But although the state can’t insist, it might be possible for a company (such as an internet service provider) to explain to Fred that it had decided to block access to particular types of material, and allow him to go to another internet service provider if this condition were unacceptable.

Article 17 provides that “Nothing in this Convention may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein or at their limitation to a greater extent than is provided for in the Convention”. So, Fred appears to be protected from inteference with (or forcing internet providers to record) his internet browsing habits, for example, as the Convention does not appear to give the state the specific right to exercise such powers in the first place. But as I have suggested in my comments on Article 8, although the state can’t insist, it might be possible for a company (such as an internet service provider) to explain to Fred that it had decided to retain all internet records for its own marketing and customer care purposes for a set period, and allow him to go to another internet service provider if this condition were unacceptable. (And thus it may be made available to the police, when proportionate and necessary.)

Finally, Article 1 of Part II of something known as the First Protocol to the Convention is relevant, as it refers to the protection of property: “Every natural or legal person is entitled to the peaceful enjoyment of his possessions. No one shall be deprived of his possessions except in the public interest and subject to the conditions provided for by law and by the general principles of international law”. This is of particular help to service providers, as it forms the basis on which they can argue that costs incurred in retaining communications records, beyond the period they need for their own business purposes, should be met by the state. The Data Protection Act requires personal information to be deleted as soon as the data controller no longer has a legitimate use for it – so this is the sugar that sweetens the medicine that has to be swallowed when providers are required to do things which ordinarily they would not.

I appear to be concluding that the state can’t properly protect the public from Fred in the shed, because the European Convention on Human Rights gets in the way. But companies, such as internet service providers, might be able to circumvent some of those restrictions if they really wanted to. Data protection legislation can allow personal information be used for a wide range of purposes, provided the data controller's privacy policy fairly sets out just how the information that will be provided or generated by people will be used.

Can data protection legislation really provide the band aid to patch over these gaps in human rights legislation? That’s a huge question, and one that needs to be considered in another blog.

Balancing the rights of the police and the policed

When I'm asked to get involved with public policy debates about how long communication service providers should be required to retain information for which they no longer have any use for themselves, I often feel as though I’m being forced to choose between two competing interests. And when I look to the law for assistance, I find it’s a bit vague. Perhaps this is how the Attorney General felt when he was forced to provide a definite yes/no answer on the legality of starting a recent war.

I find it easier to know where to start looking for the rights of the policed, as the Human Rights Act helpfully sets out those rights. And it gives “human rights” to things that aren’t even human too – when the legislation refers to “natural or legal” persons, businesses prick their ears up (well, they would if they had ears), and occasionally assert their rights. And then, for individuals, the Data Protection Act kicks in and expands on some of these basic fundamental rights.

The trouble is, I find it really hard to know even where to start looking for the rights of the police. Is it the case that they have all the rights that have not been specifically granted to anyone else? If we had a written Constitution, it might be easier to know where to look. But as we haven’t, its not easy to find documents that properly set out the balance between the competing interests.

Why does this matter?

It matters when some people take advantage of their “human rights” to abuse the rights of others. I want to live in a fair, just and tolerant society. I don’t want my rights to be abused (or me to be harmed) by someone who unfairly hides behind a cloak of anonymity. That’s not cricket. All should be fair in love and war. And crime.

And I sometimes wonder whether the people who, over 50 years ago, drafted the principles that form the basis of our human rights legislation really would have settled on the same text if they were asked to create a set of principles that were fit for purpose for today. I think that they would accept that there was a need to revise some of them.

And I think this because the conditions, and threats, that existed 50 years ago have changed. Back in those days, European nations were extricating themselves from the disastrous consequences of war and the dangers appeared to come from oppressive regimes. Accordingly, the European Convention on Human Rights seems to be more concerned with setting out the rights of individuals, to empower them against the weight of a threatening central regime. But does that legislation adequately address the threats that people can face today – where threats can equally come from large companies, or from other people? And, more explicitly, does it give the state sufficient power to protect people from “Fred in the shed”. Or can “Fred” exploit a legal vacuum that appears to exist that makes it very hard for the State to keep enough information about him to prevent him from causing harm to anyone else?

Terrorism these days appears to be just as likely to be delivered by people like “Fred” than from oppressive regimes. And, thanks to the internet, people like Fred can equip themselves with the information necessary to cause outrage to many. So how should the internet be policed, so that people can be protected from Fred? Especially when many people appear to want security without lifting a finger themselves.

The internet isn’t mentioned anywhere within the European Convention on Human Rights – it didn’t exist when the Convention was drafted. This causes me problems when I try to work out what rights the police should have and what anonymity the policed ought to be able to expect as they use the internet.

If the Convention were to be redrafted today by, say, a set of German campaigners, I guess that they would be keen to reflect the recent data protection scandals in that country. They include incidents involving the illegal trade of address lists and bank account information. And some of the largest German companies in key industries, including transportation, finance, automotive, retail, and health care, have been accused of misbehaviour, say by monitoring the personal data and activities of their employees. Media coverage of these developments sparked widespread public interest among politicians, trade unions, and consumers on the mishandling of personal data, so in July 2009 various changes were made to the Bundesdatenschutzgesetz, Germany's Federal Data Protection Act. In essence, they tighten the controls and, in some cases, require information to be deleted so that it is no longer capable of being abused. But when that information is deleted, it also can’t be used for policing purposes.

If the Convention were to be redrafted today by, say, a set of British campaigners, I wonder what line would be taken. As far as Ian Walden, Professor of Information and Communications Law at Queen Mary College, is concerned, according to the Daily Telegraph (23 Jan 2010), the authorities have taken “advantage of the terrorist bombing in London” to erode civil liberties. He was responding to media reports that the police and security services were set to monitor every phone call, text message, email and website visit made by private citizens. The details would be stored for a year and will be available for monitoring by government bodies. Apparently, all telecoms companies and internet service providers will be required by law to keep a record of every customer’s personal communications, showing who they have contacted, when and where, as well as the websites they have visited.

Ian was quoted as saying that “The police clearly took advantage of the terrorist bombing in London to get an agenda, which has been around for years, pushed to the forefront”

“They would never have got Government support for data retention, which became a European issue, without the Madrid and London bombings.” The 2004 Madrid bombers [apparently] used one shared web based email account to make plans, rather than exchanging messages that could be intercepted. Their actions killed 191 people and wounded over 1,000.

“Concerns from civil liberty groups are we will lose the liberties that we thought we had without necessarily notifying us. Why does the data on all of us have to be retained in order to find out about those that are bad?”

Ian highlighted the danger of laws created to catch dangerous criminals later being manipulated to spy on millions on households, and reflected on the fact that local councils had been criticised for using anti-terrorism (RIPA) laws to snoop on residents suspected of littering and dog fouling offences.

“My concern is that its easy policy-making… if you say it’s against terrorism and it’s against child pornography then nobody is going to say no.”

Ian’s comments echo those made by Dame Stella Rimington, the former head of MI5, who last year accused ministers of interfering with people’s privacy and playing straight into the hands of terrorists, by creating a “police state”. Similar comments were made last year by Tory immigration spokesman Damian Green. He gained notoriety in November 2008 by being arrested, held for nine hours, and his homes and House of Commons office searched by police under anti-terrorism legislation, probing alleged Home Office leaks.

I’m not sure that I entirely share those comments. But it’s hard to know just where to draw the line.

In my next blog I’ll have a quick look at some of the Convention rights and freedoms and see if I can draw any conclusions as to how they might need to be tweaked to take account of the internet age we live in today.

RIPA – A tale of an unnecessary squabble between Government Departments

Travelling to work today, I reflected on the lengths to which the Prime Minister had sought to impose his authority on a recent dispute between two political parties in Northern Ireland. He cleared his diary and tried to settle matters by personally intervening in the affair.

It’s a shame he can’t be bothered to find the time to intervene in a dispute that is currently brewing between two of his cabinet colleagues over the extent to which all public authorities should be regulated when they access communications data.

What do I mean?

Well, in a little-noticed Parliamentary move, those awfully clever bods at the Home Office have tabled a draft Statutory Instrument which, because no-one takes much notice of such things, will come into force on 6th April. For those who want to look it up, it’s called the Regulation of Investigatory Powers (Communications Data) Order 2010.

The purpose of this SI is to consolidate a crop of SIs which currently exist, which set out various public authorities can demand post or communications information from providers, in accordance with the provisions of the mighty Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA). The expectation is that if the authority follows the procedure in the SI, then they should also be complying with the provisions of the Human Rights Act.

When the Home Office first mooted this proposal, back in March 2009, operators liked the idea as a way of setting out, in one document, just who could do what. There are lots of public authorities that access communications data, but that is because they all have their own investigatory functions. It’s not just the police who root out the bad boys. Loan sharks, fly tippers, dodgy dealers are generally investigated by people working for local authorities. The explanatory notes to the SI very helpfully list some 42 different types of public authorities, and it provides examples of just why they need communications data to carry out their work. It's very compelling evidence.

These investigators hail from a wide range of Agencies and Government Departments, including investigators from the Department of Agriculture & Rural Development, the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills, the Department of Enterprise, Trade & Investment, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Department of Health, the Department for Transport, the Home Office, the Ministry of Defence, and the Ministry of Justice.

But – and this is a big but – investigators from one Government Department have refused to play ball. For reasons of their own, they’ve formed the view that they don’t need to subject themselves to the sort of regulation and oversight that comes with RIPA. Who are these miscreants? Step forward the bunch from the Department for Work and Pensions.

DWP's investigators have been told to exercise powers under Section 109B of the Social Security Administration Act 1992 (as amended by the Social Security Fraud Act 2001) to require information from “any person”, including providers. They’ve been told to boycott the RIPA regime.

It’s quite hard to work out just why Yvette Cooper, the current Secretary of State for Work & Pensions, has refused to join the rest of her Cabinet colleagues in allowing her Department to participate in a central scheme. It’s not as though she hasn’t had second-hand experience of RIPA. After all, her husband, Ed Balls was the Economic Secretary to the Treasury between May 2006 and June 2007, and should have been aware that both the Financial Services Authority and HM Revenue & Customs had happily operated under the RIPA regime. Ed was then (and still is) appointed Secretary of State for Children, Schools & Families, and in that capacity he ought to be aware that the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission has also happily operated within the RIPA regime.

So, if it’s good enough for Ed, why isn’t it good enough for Yvette?

When providers commented on the Home Office’s proposals last year, some of them hoped that, at last, the Department of Work and Pensions might be forced to end its RIPA boycott. Providers pointed out that, as a consequence of the DPW’s boycott of the RIPA regime:

• They had not had an opportunity to provide any initial or refresher training to competent DWP investigators on the range of information that is available from providers, or to advise how maximum value can be derived from their records (unlike the training currently given to potential and accredited Single Point of Contact (“SPOC”) Officers).
• They found it hard to check the authenticity of all DWP investigators, (the Home Office has a RIPA website which has an up-to-date list of accredited SPOC Officers).
• They had not provided any statistics to the DWP to enable them to confirm that all of the requests received had actually been sent from DWP investigators.
• They had not been involved in any of the oversight mechanisms that the DWP might have put in place to mirror the oversight functions of the Interception of Communications Commissioner (whose annual visits to providers were greatly appreciated, as providers could brief him on trends which had been detected). Providers were not even sure whether an equivalent oversight function exists within the DWP.
• Providers were not able to recover any costs that were incurred in dealing with these requests.
• Providers were also not sure how many other Authorities would follow the DWP’s example and remove themselves from the RIPA regime should they also elect to exercise any concurrent powers that may be conferred on their investigators to acquire “any information” in the future.

What’s wrong with “joined-up Government” and a requirement for all Government Departments to follow common standards - through the RIPA regime?

If I were the Prime Minister, I would stop this unsightly squabble between the Home Office & the DWP by requiring Yvette Cooper to stay behind after the next Cabinet meeting and make her write on Alan Johnson's whiteboard “I must let the Interception of Communications Commissioner oversee all public authorities who access communications data, including my Department of Work and Pensions” 100 times.

'Porn, pipes and the state: Regulating internet content'

I thought that title might attract some attention. It certainly attracted mine when I saw it as the headline in a flyer for a lecture that Ian Walden, Professor of Information and Communications Law at Queen Mary College, will be giving in London next Wednesday.

Ian’s main interest lies in the point that although most governments were keen to leave the internet relatively unencumbered by regulation during its first decades, the recent clamour for greater controls over illegal and harmful content continues unabated. I’m looking forward to Ian using this opportunity to examine the Internet Watch Foundation as case study for controlling illegal internet content. I hope he will also be discussing the legal position of communication and internet service providers as gateways for exercising control. I’m also looking forward to him discussing the regulatory structures, and specifically the role of the state, in underpinning any such regime.

And I also hope that he’ll cast his net slightly wider, and consider the position of providers who, acting as dumb pipes, enable people who know what they are after to access material which is not unlawful, but to many people, extremely distasteful. When does such material fall into the category of promoting an activity that others (ie most of polite society) would abhor? And if it does fall into that category, then what should be the process for banning it, or for preventing access to it? And, for this process to be effective, how can polite society react almost immediately to the miscreants who will certainly keep shunting the links to this material between servers which are housed well outside the geographic borders of this country?

In criticising various government’s approaches to regulating content on the internet, we appear to be falling into the trap of castigating the Chinese Government for adopting the same practices that some British politicians would appear to wish the British Government to have. But their aim is for I(in their minds) a respectable cause - namely censorship to prevent radicalisation of the people. The trouble appears to be that as the Chinese and the British Government occupies different parts of the political spectrum, their views on what “radical” material should be censored differs widely.

Take “democracy”, or “the promotion of radical terrorist acts”, for example. Activities that are promoted in one country might well be purged in others.

Perhaps the issue is one of degree, rather than of principle. I expect that those good folks at Google are unhappy with the way the Chinese Government regulates access to material on the internet because its approach is much more restrictive than say, the British (or, dare I suggest it, the American) approach. But I can’t believe that China is the only country that has tried to have a quiet word with the geeks in the Googleplex who create the ranked query links we all so heavily rely on.

I saw another quite shocking example today, which really made me sit up and ask myself whether everyone always has a right to exercise free speech or freely post content on the internet. I read that a convicted criminal has apparently managed to create a facebook profile (from prison, yes a place where electronic devices are supposed to be banned!) and he has used it taunt the family of the youth he received a life sentence for murdering. In blogging about it, I expect that this might encourage a few people to try to search for the material themselves. I only hope that the Google geeks do the right thing and make it very hard for people to find this squalid stuff. Even I'm happy to censor the odd bit of "free speech" every now and again.

Should we instead ask for a more transparent system of regulation? The Internet Watch Foundation could continue to prohibit and require service providers to take down links to illegal material. Then, a new body, say the Internet Classification Agency, could classify internet content, and ban search engines from ranking sites that a new “Contentmaster” decrees are not for UK eyes. Would that be a job for someone like me? If so, I’ll certainly consider allowing myself to be dragged from my current role, elevated to the exalted rank of, say, “The Count of Crouch End”, appointed "Contentmaster of the ICA", and be given a seedy office in Soho from which I (and, no doubt, lots of my underlings) could ply our unhappy and disgusting trade.

Come to think of it, there's already an ICA on The Mall, which is quite close to Soho. That ICA - not to be confused with mine, is the "Institute of Contemporary Arts" which proclaims itself as "one of the world's most innovative and influential cultural institutions, presenting a dynamic and daily programme of contemporary arts, ideas, film and culture." It sounds, in terms of a mission statement, quite similar to what I would expect my mission to be - but that ICA is a registered charity. I would have preferred my ICA to be a quango. (Quangos usually have more generous pension schemes, and you get longer holidays). However, if Ekow Eshun, the current Artistic Director of that ICA, fancies a job share and a slightly revised remit, we ought to be able to work something out.

Anyway, back to the point. If you’re also (professionally) interested in porn and the regulation of “distasteful” content too, then please say “Hello” to me as you creep along rear rows of the Skeel Lecture Theatre, in Mile End on 3rd February. Ian’s on at 6.30pm. There’s no warm up act – so if you’re late, you may have missed the best images....