E-privacy requires international push says national minister

GOVERNMENT DIRECTIVES, consumer awareness and that old chestnut of industry self regulation are three key elements of protecting people's privacy, according to the UK Government communication, culture and creative industries minister.

That minister, the Conservative party MP for Wantage and Didcot, Ed Vaizey has set out his stall on the issue of e-privacy and it's quite a big one. Following his earlier no, yes, eh, maybe approach to net neutrality, Vaizey today gave the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) his view of the Internet and personal data. And quite a view it is too, taking in quite an international panorama.

"I am determined that we should preserve the internet as a lightly regulated engine of growth, it is pretty clear that a set of privacy standards is emerging - both from existing regulation and from forthcoming legislation from Europe and the US," Vaizey told the CBI.

You can read his wide ranging speech here but cutting to the end, which was the best bit, Vaizey said he has his e-privacy principles. They are: transparency; the right to opt in or out of having your data tracked or passed to third parties; proper rules for storing and transferring data; data removal and a system of sanctions.

Few would argue with any of that, but what UK web surfers can clearly expect is an international dimension to e-privacy from this Government. International Internet, it sounds great at first.

And the great thing about that for any minister of the Government is that no commitment need be given or taken up, foreign bodies can be blamed for whatever happens, any change can be said to be impossible without unanimity among nations, and big corporations can spend lots of dosh influencing said institutions. µ