Lobby your ISP, says privacy group

On-line privacy activists have urged UK Internet users to send a letter to their Internet service provider asking for details about their privacy policies.

Cyber-Rights & Cyber-Liberties has drafted a letter that it hopes users will customise and send to their ISPs. The group said it hopes to find out the privacy policies of over 300 UK ISPs.

"Our objective is to get ISPs to realise that their customers have rights which the government forum may be encouraging ISPs to infringe without realising it," said Nicholas Bohm, e-commerce policy advisor for the civil rights group.

The group has been vocal in its objection to the ongoing co-operation between ISPs and the Association of Chief Police Officers, since the relationship was struck last month.

Police say the partnership is designed to help ISPs better deal with illegal on-line activity by their customers. But the civil rights group has argued that information about a customer held by an ISP should be confidential.

The letter says that an ISP should keep all information confidential and asks a number of questions about the ISPs existing privacy policy.

"It should be your duty to safeguard my right to private communications, which is explicitly protected by international agreements such as the European Convention on Human Rights," the letter says.

The draft letter was compiled after extensive discussion within the cyber-rights-UK mailing list this month. The letter is available from the group's Web site www.cyber-rights.org, and will be distributed via interested emailing lists.