RevK, aka Adrian Kennard, the boss of ISP Andrews & Arnold (
http://aa.net.uk) was answering questions for half an hour on Wednesday afternoon along with James Blessing from ISPA ( ispa.org.uk ), the ISPs' trade association.
It took a bit of effort for me to find it, but in the end I did manage to find the footage
on the web. [ I didn't have much luck with BBC iPlayer, it may be that it's too soon. ]
See
http://parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/54f42d6d-2377-4e98-9f6b-f21149c2b21fThe committee seemed to have the right attitude as far as I can tell, which was surprising and encouraging. They were told that “Internet connection records” is a meaningless term because it's
sooo vague, unless it is taken to mean, “some piece of information, whatever the Home Secretary wants it to mean at any particular time in any particular case”.
The experts told the committee that the vagueness and open ended nature of the bill is a worry because small ISPs have no idea how expensive and onerous might some demand be that could be placed on them. Another concern being how far a future Home Secretary might go from what was originally envisioned in terms of ordering information to be collected, for example, by using DPI way too extensively.
I was pleased that RevK got in a plug for the Firebrick and indeed waved one around as a prop. He was tasteful enough not to mention either A & A or Firebrick by name. He pointed out that ISPs, software and hardware manufacturers might have to move outside the UK if ordered by the govt to compromise or remove encryption or to start lying to their customers. He also pointed out that international customers might get nervous about dealing with UK service providers or with manufacturers based in the UK in case their services or products might have untrustworthy broken encryption, back doors or lies in them, and so the customer might choose to go to say a supplier in the Netherlands for example instead.
