Does the Digital Economy Bill breach web users' rights?

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The Human Rights Joint Select Committee has come out against the Digital Economy Bill, claiming it could breach the rights of internet users.

Focusing on the proposals that deal with illegal filesharing, the committee has released a report detailing where its concerns lie.

The technical measures that could be taken by the Government and ISPs seemed to be the committee’s biggest bug to bear, due to a lack of definition.

“The scope of the measures will be defined in secondary legislation and could be wide-ranging,” the report said.

“We do not believe that such a skeletal approach to powers which engage human rights is appropriate. There is potential for these powers to be applied in a disproportionate manner which could lead to a breach of internet users' rights to respect for correspondence and freedom of expression.”

The report also raised concerns about clause 17 of the bill, which would allow the Government to change copyright law without going through the full legislative process.

The committee claims to have been told amendments to the clause will be brought in to limit the circumstances where it can be used.

However its report concluded: “Despite the proposed amendments we are concerned that Clause 17 remains overly broad and that parliamentary scrutiny may remain inadequate.”

Other groups have also come out against this clause, including internet giants eBay, Google, Yahoo and Facebook who wrote to the Government asking for the clause to be removed.

We contacted the Business, Skills and Innovations department which Lord Mandelson, champion for the bill, presides over for comment but it had not responded to our request at the time of publication.

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