They just replied ... do you think that BT/FON are monitoring rr.pub now (?)
So, there we are: "Tough but you MUST accept it" Really ? I don't think so, I _will _now ask the ICO...
(I like how their typo mentions the Privacy "police", because that's the ICO too !)
The emboldened text is how I received it too; Yes, it's not their fault it is BT's (of course)
..........................................................................................................................................................................
_We have received your request to be informed about the hotspot location in the maps.
As a BT customer you must accept the BT's T&C and Privacy police were should reflect the usage of the personal data provided by the customer to BT at the time of registration.
The personal data provided to BT has a purpose and the responsible for these personal data is "BT" that should clarify that purpose as is not Fon who collect these personal data and we do not have access to BT purpose of processing user personal data.
_
.......................................................................................................................................................................................................................
Yes, guess what ? - Customers only read the (umpteen page) Ts&Cs once the problems start and their privacy is impinged upon....
Well I understand what you mean BrianH but of course using the 'better the devil you know' approach I still have my P38 !
BT's 'own' e-mail service has now been absorbed by Yahoo of course.. that famous UK-company
I think we all know the Social Networking philosophy that "if you are not paying for a product then you are the product"
Or as Fakebook say "we make money from advertising (oh and selling your retails to others...)" but what is irritating here is that BT customers are paying for it, including our locations on their WiFi maps !
In order to get the 'official' view I have sent this question to FON (several times now); They did not answer:
_Please explain how my Home Hub location appearing on BT's WiFi-with_FON Hot Spot Location map is NOT
an infringement according to GDPR/Privacy principles._
On cue this arrived today from Google; Looks like agreeing to their Privacy Policy means they 'own' you (and in perpetuity) ?
Warning: 29 Pages !!
https://www.gstatic.com/policies/privacy/pdf/20190122/f3294e95/google_privacy_policy_en_eu.pdf
Don't like their Personalised Ads. ? Just turn them off (and then you will get 'General' Ads . that you can't mute instead !)
Insidious...
Fortunately however:
Thanks for your response/research Morat but I would still maintain that, as my neighbour's privacy was clearly 'invaded'/'impinged upon' then both BT's Duty of Care and GDPR Principles had been infringed indirectly. The main point is that anyone signing up to "BTWifi-with-FON" after May last year may well have a Prima Facia case worth pursuing (although that is tricky as they/FON seem to have preempted all this and associated 'charges'):-
https://network.fon.com/
Ts&Cs
https://corp.fon.com/fon-application-sla/
Note, in particular their 'universal get-out clause':
“ FON shall use your current location through your mobile device only in order to show you the available hotspots near your location.
FON is not responsible for any Expenses relating to the connection to a FON or FON Partners powered by Fon WiFi Signal. “
Incidentally FON claim now to have 23M Hot Spots; They seem to have failed to mention though how many of these are OUR hubs.... !
Thanks to your questioning the validity of all this I will also ask the ICO about this specific issue too; Might also take a while though (!) Overall I tend to see the GDPR as 'a step in the right direction' but essentially something which will develop further over the years anyway, based on Governments (eventually) better understanding what is going on here with regards to what Personal Privacy and OPT IN really mean for Customers... and the situation (and legislation) will change to reflect that too.
EDIT; Just searched a bit further... (and I am now even less impressed !):-
https://corp.fon.com/privacy-policy-of-fon/
Looks like by signing up for FON you are thus authorising them for all kinds of liberties too !
Just saw your note as I posted mine Gilbertd/Richard !
Perhaps this is the best way to address the issue then: If relatively open usage of our Personal Data is fine/acceptable, why was the GDPR needed ?
Of course, GDPR is not well supported in the US; That issue with Toad simply illustrates that GDPR is probably too little/too late (?)
I realise this stuff may be new to many but it is not to me; Decades ago I attended a seminar where BT proudly announced they had reverse-engineered The Telephone Book: Why ? So that cold-callers could target addresses on whole streets sequentially; We all know where that led of course.... (and don't even get me started on the related topic of how offshore callers can emulate UK Caller ID numbers either) !
Sorry I forgot to say that yes you can turn off your Router/Wireless, but most not-very-tech-savvy BT BB customers can't; I recommend TP-Link Routers instead !
Again this is not a new topic, many folks have been annoyed for a while too (Expletive Alert !):
https://www.reddit.com/r/britishproblems/comments/5ixlhr/fuck_off_with_your_bt_wifi_with_fon/
(Sorry Morat but for some reason your first answer (#71) was not visible to me before I responded to #72 here !! Perhaps a 'refresh' issue/servers etc or BT/GCHQ etc are monitoring me now ??!)
Yes Morat, and that statement (#72) already earned an "utter bollocks" remark of course..!!... but it is not MY statement/definition of Personal Data here it is all part of GDPR Principles
OK, look at BT's local coverage map (as I suggested) and you can most certainly identify individual house/s (as those kids did to my neighbour, who is ill and needed his sleep etc; Thus BT seriously impinged on his health by their FON OPT IN 'default': That on its own is enough to fall foul of those principles).
The problem here is always the same: I have been around this loop a few times now and it is always the same: Everyone apparently thinks their data is sacrosanct until it is used for a purpose they did not sign up to, or, as in that link above you probably also did not follow, " NOT saying NO is NOT the same as saying YES "! (aka CONSENT)
So here it is in a nutshell: Even if you do OPT IN to FON BT still have to ask you specifically if it OK to display your location on a map !
Back to your remarks in #71 again :
Maybe this MAP Permission is hidden away in BT's Ts&Cs somewhere in obscure legalese....
In fact I will now ask them and let you know what they say. OK !?
Knowing BT they will either ignore my question (several times), or suggest I call their FON Help Line...... so don't hold your breath !
With respect Morat, having already had to justify my actions on here I am not about to have my apparent interpretations of OPT IN used as an example of me "thinking bollocks" too !! In fact I know quite a lot about "Analytics" and how it has been used for years to profile people, and that GDPR is a (belated) attempt to address that....
However it is simple enough, Consent requires me to agree to something directly, not by 'implication' or 'other means', for instance:
https://www.mailjet.com/gdpr/consent/
It is not about what I 'feel' either. My example was clear enough so I wont repeat it: BT have unlilaterally (and covertly) signed BB Customers up to FON; To sign on you need an e-mail address, typically BT Yahoo, part of 'OATH', who will happily also harvest data for "their own use and 'selected' partners".. (and frankly I know a lot more about BT than to believe they are 'doing it all for us Customers' etc either... the ultimate marketing lie !)
Anyway, the 'final' (GDPR) paragraph explains how this works; No single organisaton necessarily contains non-compliant 'Personal Data', but comparison of several databases may do this, as you know.... and so such effectively pseudonymisation contravenes GDPR principles too, as that paragraph already explained....
What I will end on though on is a positive note: Following on from my 'van man' incident a (not so) nearby BT BB neighbour contacted me to ask if that could be why he 'was plagued by noisy kids parked outside his house on Friday/Saturday evenings until the early hours interrupting his sleep' (and requiring him to pick up their fast food litter deposited on the grass verge in the morning) ? I explained FON Hot Spots to him.... (he had no idea he was OPTED IN of course, and was incensed especially as the BT "Help Desk" person he spoke with was apparently clueless about it... ).......
Solution ? First I showed him how to turn off the wireless facility with with his PC/Admin access... as this is overly complicated I installed a non-BT (TP-Link) Hub for him instead, one with a physical switch to turn off Wireless; Result ? No noisy kids Fri/Sat and his all-important sleep restored !!
The following Xmas I received an excellent bottle of Single Malt Scotch from him too; Cheers BT BB FON !!
I am probably more cautious than most: Had a friend trapped by his Metro twisting off stands on his drive, fortunately spotted by a passer-by in time; It all depends what your stands are standing on, ie. if it is not sold/flat concrete ....
I gave up on the usual flimsy stuff a while back and bought an ex-garage trolley jack instead; Even then I don't trust axle stands much either with our two-ton beasts and I use stacks of high-density breeze blocks with paving slabs plus wooden planking atop instead. Takes a while yes, but 'the more the merrier', particularly if I am under there heaving on a 3-foot breaker bar or some such... !
Ok, so now I am talking ‘utter bollocks’, cheers chaps !
In fact FWIW the ‘nasty van man’ mentioned had been parking there for months, 2-3 times a week, usually 10-11 at night, engine running and was, as stated, obstructing my drive (and three others)…. So he was causing a problem for quite a few households: One time when I asked him to move so I could get out of my drive he stated “(only) when I have finished my SMS mate” and then the (escalating) police problem I described started. In fact I wondered why he did not just put his pad down on the passenger’s seat and move down the road but there was no parking space for several houses (as the road is narrow)…anyway it looked like he was using some kind of free on-line SMS-sending app. (instead of the usual side channel of his mobile provider for this). Unfortunately I was unable to ascertain why he was doing that, just that he did not want to move immediately and thus drop his (WiFi) connection. As far as I could tell he was doing something ‘nefarious’. His Company was very apologetic when I contacted them; His activities then ceased and so I am unable to ask him just what he was doing and why.... but it did reveal the whole "BT-with-FON" problem (and not just for me) !
It is interesting how I am apparently having to justify my (overt) stance here rather than BT justifying their (covert) automatic opt-in stance !
All I can say is that my neighbours were very grateful when I (finally) worked out what was going on and stopped it.
Incidentally that ‘power’ analogy I used was how one of the BT BB neighbours described it. Possibly a coincidence but many of these users were inundated with Virgin Media offers too... or maybe we are all paranoid !
Part of the problem here of course is explaining what Big Data companies are doing (and how) by comparison with the usual (eg. retail) situation/s. [“Cookies” are a good example: If I go into Halfords I don’t expect them to let all their friends that I was there looking at batteries (or whatever) so they can mail me offers etc, unless I tell them specifically that it is OK to do so.]
Similarly it seems like a joke that Huawei is banned for possibly providing 5G hardware that is ‘a security risk’ when FakeBook and co have been doing this kind of monitoring for years (but it’s OK because it is Software-based and so Governments don’t understand it so easily…)
GDPR – and its related principles - are all there for good reason/s (albeit a bit late...) ; OPT-IN Rules (as I may have already mentioned once or twice....) !
Finally I did not write this either:
“…Personal data which have undergone pseudonymisation, which could be attributed to a natural person by the use of additional information should be considered to be information on an identifiable natural person…”
Is your address and the fact that you are a BT Broadband Customer 'personal' information: I would say so !
What I am saying and repeating is that BT are providing FON Hot Spots and not actually (and clearly enough) revealling how.....
Do as I did: Identify and explain it to any unsuspecting (BT BB) neighbours: You may be surprised by their reactions !
For clarification I am stating that all such facilities should be OPT IN not automatically defaulted to that, and that is very
close to the intentions and aims of the GDPR....
You probably Opted In to "FON" over 10 years ago then: That's fine - as it was your choice to do so: The problem however is that since 2009 it has been an automatic Opt In, and that's not so fine: It means BT made that decision for customers (and presumably hid this away in their small print somewhere ?); The question then is how/why exactly they thought this change acceptable/appropriate/etc...
Incidentally in my case - as I described above - the chap using part of my hub for his SMSs used a Company van and would often not move it unless I was insistent: When I explained I would photograph this obstruction of his and send it to both the Council and his Company he called the police to say I was "threatening" him (!): Now that's when it all became a very big deal to me, and so I did as said I would......
BT are certainly revealing the locations of their Customers personal Hot Spots as in many cases it is very easy to identify those individual Customers, and they have not been asked if that is OK to do either.... It is not really acceptable for them to say "well there are so many ( grouped together ) it is hard to tell" either ! In fact more recently I located a few neighbours locally and asked them if they were aware of this FON facility and none were....
If you check around on the web for this (eg. "BT FON disable") you will see many are irritated by BT's underhanded policy on all this; As for changing SSID's etc on their Hubs I simply advise folks concerned to change to a non-BT Hub instead; just try de-registering your FON service and see what I mean !
Suitable analogies are difficult but if Householders found out that their Power Supplier was also effectively using 2-10% of their bill to light the lamp-posts outside (and were not up-front about it) there would be mass trouble for sure !
I could probably reasonably contend that it relates to the aspect of GDPR as it applies to OPT IN/OUT requirements Consent [ Art. 4(11) ] for example::
Technically BT (on that link posted above) are thus publically revealing the specific location/s of their customers (without explicit permission) of course !
Similarly it is possibly a complex legal issue but, as you indicated, monopolies seem to think THEY make the rules.....
.
Incidentally BT say 'it eats 2%-10% of your available bandwidth', so who know what it really is....
Either way, it is a default liberty !! (How many BT Broadband Customers on here were also unaware for example ?)
Yes, you are right BrianH it is quite a limited 'service': I only found about it because a chap used to frequently park near my house late at night, obviously using his mobile for (a WiFi) SMS App. - and when I (eventually) investigated just why he did that I realised there was an (open) "BT-with-FON" WiFi signal operated at high signal strength (not so surprising as it was from MY hub.. !)...... When challenged he did not like it (as in " I am a BT Customer so I have paid to use it") so I had to resort to other means to dissuade him....
Back on GDPR I just had a chat with someone about the importance of OPT OUT / OPT IN stuff which reminded me I originally meant to ask how many of us have BT Broadband and if so did you know that you were automatically 'opted in' so that your Home Hub is a BT WiFi Hot Spot ?!
In fact it has been like this for about 10 years; the basic idea is that if you sign up to use "BT FON" when you are out and about then that means it is then OK for BT to use (a part of) your Home Mub Bandwidth for their service (!); BT have been quite guarded about how much of your Speed is lost as a result but those who have measured it say it is up about 1/2 Meg... depending on how many others are sharing it)
Yes, it is possible to opt out but that's the point, It should clearly be something absolutely requiring an OPT IN !
EDIT: Check it out in your own area: https://www.btwifi.com/find/
(On my road there are "LOTS" of Hot Spots; This being lots of folks who don't know others are using part of their
Bandwidth that they are paying BT for of course ?!)
Probably a bit of a Moot/Moon point Morat if you (willingly and willfully) wrote it big enough to read from Earth....!
Meanwhile back down here as I hope I had originally indicated the whole EU GDPR initiative was primarily predicated on a number of various US giants who assume our data is theirs (to do with as they wish and where they wish) of course.
PS: Whilst you are up there can you get me some 50th-Anniversary Moon-rocks please ?
Well tanis8472 I think that Toad is simply "misunderstood" ...... (but in the way Mussolini and Stalin were). In the same context I first started to wonder about him when he had a "Joke Nazi" as his avatar (which no doubt would have meant any other member was banned). Yes his standard M/O is to troll/provoke and then ban you for reacting to his garbage...... I like the idea that he may be jealous of some member's cars but I thought he was nasty like that mainly because of his tiny pee-pee !
Anyway from your '8472' you may be a Trekkie (?) If so whilst I have.not had a 'Warp Core Breach: on my P38 it is only a matter of time...
and when it does I am sure someone on here it has happened to will assist !
Understood, Gordon !
eg. If you visit the likes of RRs.net they ask the question/s about using 'your' data (on the basis of their "Legitimate Interest") to pass on to others. Once you could accept Cookies from (just) them and reject their Thirs-Party cookiesThe key principal here should be that you opt in for that, not that it is a default if you use the site, and that is where the EU and USA are on a collision course.
Here's the thing; It is OK for FB/Zuck to say they 'got it wrong and will improve' (and other platitudes) but in the meantime all their User's data is fair game (and in perpetuity.....) ?
The EU (and so the UK !) are bound by certain established 'Consumer' and 'Customer/User' rules; For instance if you buy something from Halfords is it then somehow acceptable for them to pass the details of that transaction to other organisations ? Of course not (depending on any Ts&Cs you may may have signed....) but, for a variety of reasons, many Consumer's don't view the Digital World from the same points of Personal Privacy......
Similarly if your use a US-based e-mail platform is it right that they own the content... on the basis that you don't actually pay for it ? This is also the future, paying for our privacy too......
In effect this has already all happened of course with the FaceBook/Cambridge Analytica case and the key question "who owns our personal data ?" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook%E2%80%93Cambridge_Analytica_data_scandal
The "Social Media" Companies can't be trusted (and don't care) ! It is inevitable that further Regulation will occur....