(Via Ars Technica.)

Microsoft plans to turn off its MSN Music authorization servers at the end of this summer, according to an e-mail sent out to customers today. It’s another reminder that DRM means you don’t fully known the media you bought.

(Via guardian.co.uk Technology.)

“Ofcom warns UK’s major internet service providers it may be forced to impose a code of practice if they cannot thrash out a voluntary agreement”

(Via The Times) Jonathan Richards writes

Senior Whitehall figures are to be held personally responsible if their department loses or mishandles personal information, under a range of measures designed to increase data security.

Officials across the public sector, including permanent secretaries and chief executives of NHS trusts, are to be forced to take data protection “much more seriously” under proposals due to be laid out by Gus O’Donnell, the Cabinet Secretary.

In the coming weeks Mr O’Donnell is expected to present the findings of a report on data security. The report was commissioned by the Prime Minister in the wake of the loss of 25 million child benefit claimant records by the HMRC in November.

(Via Ars Technica.)

It’s official: ‘public provocation to commit a terrorist offense’ will be a crime in the EU, and that includes ‘terrorist propaganda’ distributed via the Internet. Enforcement will be another matter.

(via BBC News)

Tough action is required by US regulators to protect the principles that have made the net so successful, a leading digital rights lawyer has said.

Professor Lawrence Lessig was speaking at a public meeting to debate the tactics some net firms use to manage data traffic at busy times.

He said the Federal Communications Committee (FCC) should act to keep all net traffic flowing equally.

The FCC said net firms had a duty to tell customers about data management.

(Via Ars Technica.)

The MPAA has been hard at work trying to sue sites like The Pirate Bay out of existence, while attempting to convince ISPs to block access by users. The efforts have yet to have the desired effect, as BitTorrent traffic is up drastically so far this year.

(Via The Register) Chris Williams writes

The government has refused to investigate BT’s covert wiretapping of thousands of its customers in 2006 and 2007, despite its own expert’s view that without consent Phorm’s advertising targeting technology is a breach of criminal law.
…
BT customers who have attempted to report the secret listening and profiling experiments to the police have been told to approach the Home Office. One was subsequently told over email by an official: “It is important to remember that private companies such as ISPs are allowed to do certain things under section 3 of [the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act] that Law Enforcement Agencies cannot do without permission.” The Home Office advice to BT and Phorm meanwhile, written by civil servant Simon Watkin, says a proposed Phorm deployment may be legal under RIPA only if consent is obtained.

(Via OUT-LAW)

The privacy watchdog for EU institutions has called for a planned requirement for telecoms companies to publish details of information security breaches to be extended to banks, businesses and medical bodies

(Via Kable)

Wales has opened a range of e-democracy services, including online petitions, consultations

(Via The Sun) Anthony France writes

A ruthless rapist found victims by getting a job as a care worker and trawling a council’s database for vulnerable young girls.

Simeon Kellman, 43, used computer records to identify teenagers who had just come out of the foster care system. … Father-of-two Kellman began his vile campaign after landing a care worker job with Greenwich Council in South East London. Cops say he made a “substantial” number of computer searches on profiles of former foster children.