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UK MPs: “Digital Bill may beach human rights”

February 9, 2010

The Joint Select Committee on Human Rights said the government’s Digital Economy Bill needed clarification. It said that technical measures – which include cutting off persistent pirates – were not “sufficiently specified”.

In addition, it said that it was concerned that the Bill could create “over-broad powers”.

“The Internet is constantly creating new challenges for policy-makers but that cannot justify ill-defined or sweeping legislative responses, especially when there is the possibility of restricting freedom of expression or the privacy of individual users,” said Andrew Dismore MP and chair of the Committee.

A spokesperson for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), which oversees the Digital Economy Bill, said that government had “always been clear that [its] proposals to deal with unlawful file-sharing should not contravene human rights”.

Categories: Articles, Broadband, Regulation