The call comes just days after consumer regulator the Office of
Fair Trading said that it would be carrying out an investigation
into whether behavioural advertising is unfair to consumers.
The All Party Parliamentary Communications Group (ApComms) said
the internet advertising industry's self-regulation on behavioural
advertising was inadequate, and that a law change was
necessary.
"We do not believe that it is at all appropriate to consider the
deployment of any type of behavioural advertising system without
explicit, informed, 'opt-in' by everyone whose data is to be
processed, and whose behaviour is to be monitored and whose
interests are to be deduced," said ApComms in a report on its
findings.
"We do not believe that 'opt-out', however commercially
convenient, is the way that these systems should be run. To that
extent, the Good Practice Principles promoted by the Internet
Advertising Bureau are insufficient to protect people," it
said.
"We recommend that the Government review the existing
legislation applying to behavioural
advertising, and bring forward new rules as needed, to ensure that
these systems are only operated on an explicit, informed, opt-in
basis," it said.
It also said that it had concerns about the way that children's
personal details were being gathered by advertising systems, and
that such information needed special treatment. That requires
"urgent consideration", it said.
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ApComms heard submissions from companies, individuals and trade
bodies in hearings on a number of controversial questions related
to the internet and the law.
Representatives of the communications and advertising industries
were not keen on any further regulation of behavioural advertising,
the report said.
The group also looked at privacy on the internet and whether it
was well enough protected. It had particular concerns about the
education of children and young people in relation to the
dangers of a lack of online privacy.
ApComms said that the Government should create a privacy law to
clarify exactly what people's rights were.
"The time has now come, we believe, for the Government to create
an effective and easy-to-understand Privacy Act to provide the
clarity, and security, that everyone needs," it said. "We recommend
that the Government bring forward a Green Paper on Privacy, with a
view to bringing forward a Privacy Bill in the next Parliament that
sets out simply expressed, but far-reaching, protection for
everyone’s privacy, in both the offline and online worlds."
The group also said that it opposed the Government's current
proposal that the internet connections used by people suspected of
illegal file sharing be cut off. "We do not believe that
disconnecting end users is in the slightest bit consistent with
policies that attempt to promote eGovernment, and we recommend that
this approach to dealing with illegal file-sharing should not be
further considered," it said.
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