WEDNESDAY 14 MARCH 2007

MS CAMILLE DE STEMPEL, MR MATTHEW HENTON, MR JAMES BLESSING, MR JOHN SOUTER AND MR MALCOLM HUTTY

  Q716  Chairman: Welcome everybody, thank you very much to the witnesses for coming to talk to us today. I am going to have to ask you to make sure that you speak clearly, the acoustics of the room are not good—I apologise for that. Thank you very much for coming today and welcome to the members of the public who are here as well; I presume you picked up the note about this inquiry to tell you about the inquiry. If we could start by our witnesses please identifying yourselves and, if you wish, making an opening statement. You are so far away and the lighting is such that I cannot quite read everybody's name. Mr Hutty, perhaps you could start at this end, please.

  Mr Hutty: Thank you. I am Malcolm Hutty and I am Head of Public Affairs at the London Internet Exchange (LINX). I am here with my colleague.

  Mr Souter: I am John Souter, I am the Chief Executive of LINX and I would just like to say a couple of quick words about it. We are a membership organisation and we serve 250 or so Internet-related organisations who are variously ISPs, hosting companies, streaming media companies, search engines and so forth. We are one of the two or three largest in the world based on the most important metrics which are the number of members, the amount of traffic, reach in terms of routes and part of our mission is to serve our members in public affairs by doing exactly what we are doing today.

  Mr Henton: I am Matthew Henton and I am on the Council of the Internet Service Providers' Association. ISPA is very pleased to be able to give evidence to the Committee today. As the main trade association for companies involved in the provision of Internet services in the UK, ISPA has over 170 members and we represent about 95% of the UK Internet access market by volume. ISPA has been committed to providing a safe on-line experience for its users since inception in 1995. We welcome the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee inquiry and we organised the annual ISPA Parliamentary Advisory Forum in January this year on the subject of personal Internet security. That brought together key industry players, Government officials, parliamentarians and lawyers in debate and discussion; we were delighted that Lord Broers was able to speak at the event and that the Earl of Erroll was able to join us for the Panel discussion. ISPA is concerned to ensure that the nature of the Internet is not misunderstood and hopes that the evidence session will add to the written evidence that has already been submitted, offering clarity on how ISPs in the UK are working together and with their consumers to promote personal Internet security.

  Ms de Stempel: I am Camille de Stempel and I also sit on ISPA Council. I also work for AOL UK.

  Mr Blessing: My name is James Blessing, I sit on ISPA Council and I am Chief Operations Officer for Entanet International which is also a member of LINX.

  Q717  Chairman: Thank you very much. What role do ISPs play in ensuring protecting the security of individuals using the Internet?

  Ms de Stempel: We are taking a very proactive approach in the provision of personal Internet security. We take it very seriously and offer products and services such as consumer education, materials to help consumers protect themselves. ISPA agrees very strongly with the Department of Trade and Industry approach to dealing with cyber security which advocates a three-pronged approach comprising of end user education, technical solution—network or provided to users—as well as global co-operation and enforcement. We think that there is a widespread misunderstanding regarding the nature of the threat and ISPA members are committed to working with their consumers to help address this by highlighting the way in which users can minimise the threat and informing their customers how they can best protect themselves. We agree with the position of the UK Government which emphasises the shared responsibility and the belief that the ISP industries are only part of the equation in response to such threats. We also work closely with software companies and the education system to try to bring some education material into schools, developing tools to empower parents to protect their children and try to get a lot of complementary approaches which will be developed in tandem with our on-line offering.

  Q718  Chairman: Do you maintain a record of what you have achieved in these various aims? For example, education of parents, do you think you understand the situation there? We have seen data that suggest only 20% of parents, if that, have a sophisticated understanding and that they are way behind their children.

  Ms de Stempel: We work very closely with organisations such as Ofcom and the London School of Economics trying to look at research into why parents do not take the tools that are offered to them. What we are trying to do is map the understanding from the research in order to be able to then give better marketing of those products to parents. There is a gap, but we are aware of it and trying to address it, and we are trying to make it as simple as possible for parents to feel empowered. We think that parents at the moment feel disempowered, just because they are scared of the technologies, and we are trying to bridge that gap.

  Q719  Chairman: In terms of that, is it really fair to place responsibility on the parents? In what circumstances, if any, should ISPs be held liable for security failures?

  Ms de Stempel: We do not think it is about being liable, we think that we have certainly some responsibility in working with parents, working with the Government, working with the education system to make sure that parents better understand how to empower themselves in being parents. It is not putting all the onus on parents, but it is trying to get them to share that responsibility with all actors.