Plusnet will give your personal details to ACS Law with not informing you!!

[#1]

Quote from: fourfourdevon

I'm also in doubt if the 4th October hearing will happen. Ministry could well withdraw because of bad publicity, the judge may decide that with all thats happened he needs more time, ACS:Law may decide they need more time with all thats happened and ask the judge for that time, my best guess is that the 4th October hearing will be a) much better attended if it happens at all b) adjourned almost as soon as it starts.

The adjourned 4th October hearing is for Gallant Macmillan acting for Ministry of Sound.

Quote from: Tidgy

Quote from: fourfourdevon I'm also in doubt if the 4th October hearing will happen. Ministry could well withdraw because of bad publicity, the judge may decide that with all thats happened he needs more time, ACS:Law may decide they need more time with all thats happened Was tha NPO from ACS LAw?  I'm not sure it was,..... it may well go ahead as planned as the other solicitors use different monitoring companys so this does not affect them.

While there are different monitoring companies Gallant Macmillan has previously been identified as using DigiProtect. This is the same company that has been used by ACS:Law (though latterly they also used NG3 Systems).

Quote from: Fletch

Our first concern is with our customers but we have been obliged to respond to court orders requiring that we disclose customer data. However, there is increasing evidence that there are deep concerns regarding the integrity of the process being used by rights holders to obtain customer data from ISPs for pursuing alleged copyright infringements. We need to have further confidence that the initial information gathered by rights holders is robust and that our customers will not be treated unfairly. We are urgently exploring how this can be assured, including through the assistance of the courts. I also wanted to respond to the question on did we send out customer details in unencrypted files? It has no bearing on this issue but we would like to apologise for this break in our process – we have contacted all of our affected customers and are working with them closely to protect them as much as possible from further exposure. We are investigating how this happened as we have robust systems for managing our data and we have already ensured this will not happen again.

This is the most ridiculous post in this thread to date. The wording is quite the most poorly contructed piece of damage-limitation spin I've ever seen. Parts of it are clearly lifted from the matching statement issued by BT and parts of the statement don't even makle sense. To provide some clarity I'll clear up some points for you, for those reading that are doubtless utterly bemused by your doubletalk:
1) Plusnet and BT pre-agree not to contest the court orders before anyone sets foot in a court.
2) BT (also acting for Plusnet) were questioned at the November 2009 NP application hearing. Their representative stated when asked why the application was not challenged that it was “…not for us to spend time…”. He also stated an awareness that "…some may not [be guilty of the alleged infringement]…”.
3) The emails now publically available show an email from a member of staff within BT's legal department responding on behalf of Plusnet. The email shows an attachment to this communication from the BT staff member which contains unencrypted Plusnet customer data as an Excel spreadsheet.
4) The sending of Plusnet subscriber as an unencrypted email attachment was in contravention of the terms of the order (that they pre-agreed not to contest). This specified an encrypted CD (or other media). Plusnet breached the terms of the court order in order to provide unencrypted subscriber personal data.
5) Plusnet is a named respondent in a Norwich Pharmacal application due to be heard on 4th October in the Royal Courts of Justice, London. The applicant is Ministry of Sound and the law firm acting is Gallant Macmillan. They use Digiprotect as their data collector - the same firm used by ACS:Law.
6) Plusnet staff have not stated any intention of challenging this application, or being present at the court.

[#2]

The question has been raised about data retention.
I know that this is basically a lousy reference http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_data_retention but it states

Quote

Home Office Voluntary Code of Practice on Data Retention <snip> ISP Data – retention period 6 months. Log-on (authentication user name, date and time of log-in/log-off, IP address assigned, Dial-up: CLI and number dialed, Always-on: ADSL end point/MAC address (If available).

[#3]

Quote from: stevenb

Quote from: Fletch Our first concern is with our customers but we have been obliged to respond to court orders requiring that we disclose customer data. However, there is increasing evidence that there are deep concerns regarding the integrity of the process being used by rights holders to obtain customer data from ISPs for pursuing alleged copyright infringements. We need to have further confidence that the initial information gathered by rights holders is robust and that our customers will not be treated unfairly. We are urgently exploring how this can be assured, including through the assistance of the courts. Are plusnet going to contest the next court order like TALK TALK did? yes/no i repeat If you’re still going to hand more details over in the future then you leave me with no option but to ask for my mac code

Sorry this should have said
are plusnet going to say they will contest any order like TALK TALK did? yes/no

[#4]

Quote from: Fletch

All; Just to follow up on the Sky question.  Due to serious concerns about the integrity of the processes used to obtain and store private customer information we are suspending with immediate effect the supply of any further customer data to ACS:Law until we are satisfied that weaknesses in these procedures have been addressed. Thanks, Fletch

Thanks Fletch - 1st year law students take note 

[#5]

Quote from: Fletch

All; Just to follow up on the Sky question.  Due to serious concerns about the integrity of the processes used to obtain and store private customer information we are suspending with immediate effect the supply of any further customer data to ACS:Law until we are satisfied that weaknesses in these procedures have been addressed. Thanks, Fletch

Fletch surly you mean any firm, not just ACS law. Remember Gallant McMillan are back in court on Monday, you (BT) previosly stated you did not contest the order, but with what is know now you must at least contest this otherwise more customers details will have to be given away (with renumeration) to them. They are using the same data capture methods and you have stated their are concerns with the integrity of the data.

[#6]

Quote from: watching

This is the most ridiculous post in this thread to date. The wording is quite the most poorly contructed piece of damage-limitation spin I've ever seen. Parts of it are clearly lifted from the matching statement issued by BT and parts of the statement don't even makle sense. To provide some clarity I'll clear up some points for you, for those reading that are doubtless utterly bemused by your doubletalk: 4) The sending of Plusnet subscriber as an unencrypted email attachment was in contravention of the terms of the order (that they pre-agreed not to contest). This specified an encrypted CD (or other media). Plusnet breached the terms of the court order in order to provide unencrypted subscriber personal data.

You got it in one.
It seems to me that these NPO are nothing but a bit of paper that would be of more use in the toilet area as people who are party to them seem to think they can just ignore the bits they break.
How about breaking the part where you have to send the data?

[#7]

But what about the 400 Plusnet users whose names have been put in the frame ?
What advice has PN given them in it's e-mail ?
What further advice will be given if any of them are issued with a court summons ?
Downloading films & other stuff is illegal unless it's been paid for.. so you end up in court .. is it classed as a criminal or civil offence ?

[#8]

Quote from: gleneagles

The breach of ACS-Law's systems reportedly resulted in the release of a file containing 365MB of emails containing credit card information on suspected offenders, as well as emails written by the firm's boss Andrew Crossley. Can you also confirm if any credit card information was passed on and if so why was it passed on ?

Just to confirm this, we haven't disclosed *any* data relating to payment information. The information we're talking about here (as in disclosed by Plusnet) is names and addresses of alleged infringers.

[#9]

Quote from: godsell4

Somebody correct me if I am wrong. I understood TalkTalk have told ACSLaw that any court order would be contested if ACSLaw raised a order against TT. This would cost ACS Law money, so ACS Law have not requested any orders be raised againt TT. Is this true? If so, then TT have not had any court orders to contest.

That's the current situation AFAIK.

[#10]

Quote from: julesandsand

I'm sorry if this has been asked before but this thread is pretty large now. Were BT themselves subject to the court order and if so did they supply details of their own customers? I've only seen mention of PN and Sky so far and of course VM and TT  having the gumption to stand up for their customer's privacy (if that was their motivation). Are the Law Society saying anything?

AFAIK none of the court orders were exclusively related to Plusnet data, there were various other ISP's involved (though not TT and VM as is now clear). I don't think there was any BT customer data in the leaked emails, but there was mention of Sky, Be and 02 in other internet reports (I don't have the links to hand unfortunately).

[#11]

Quote from: gleneagles

But what about the 400 Plusnet users whose names have been put in the frame ? What advice has PN given them in it's e-mail ? What further advice will be given if any of them are issued with a court summons ? Downloading films & other stuff is illegal unless it's been paid for.. so you end up in court .. is it classed as a criminal or civil offence ?

We've contacted them all explaining the situation, some will have already had contact with ACS:Law, others may yet get communications from them. We're answering questions from those customers with as much information as we can, however the bulk of this information is in the FAQ.
I'm not a lawyer, but I believe copyright infringement to be a civil offence. I'm sure one of you will correct me if I'm wrong.

[#12]

Talk Talk's thoughts on the ACS:Law debacle
http://www.talktalkblog.co.uk/2010/09/28/talktalk-confirms-that-customers-not-affected-by-acslaw-dat...

[#13]

Quote from: Fletch

All; Just to follow up on the Sky question.  Due to serious concerns about the integrity of the processes used to obtain and store private customer information we are suspending with immediate effect the supply of any further customer data to ACS:Law until we are satisfied that weaknesses in these procedures have been addressed.

so will you be saying your contesting all or just certain NPO's from the different law firms? shouldn't you be contesting all NPO's not just acs:laws untill it's been proven in a court of law that all the systems in place across the 3 partys involved in the copyright infringement reducing game (not speculative invoicing game) are up to standard in identifying the guilty with at least a degree of accuracy  ?

[#14]

i searched talk talk site yesterday but found no new blogs on acs law, cheers for posting fourfourdevon

Quote

We have applied for a Judicial Review to re-evaluate the online infringement of copyright provisions of the Digital Economy Act which will use the same flawed detection methods and received insufficient Parliamentary scrutiny. You can get involved through the DEA Facebook page and Open Rights Group’s petition.

at least one isp knows what i want and i assume many others want

[#15]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/rorycellanjones/2010/09/acslaw.html

Quote

Mr Heaney says TalkTalk has never handed over customer data to ACS:Law or any other legal firm. Other ISPs suggested that was because no demand had ever been made, but Mr Heaney told me that was not the case: "We're continually approached by lawyers from ACS:Law and other firms and have consistently said 'no'. We've said, 'Let's have a debate in court if you think you've a reasonable case.' None of them have ever taken us up on the offer." He went on: "I'm not going to expose my customers to letters that they would consider bullying and threatening."

Please do the same PN