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Digital Economy Bill [HL]

My Lords, I share the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, about the drafting of this subsection. It is not clear exactly what is intended. We foresee that, as drafted, this clause could have curious unintended consequences. For example, last week we discussed Amendment 43—which is essentially to decide who is to blame when a subscriber’s account is used by a third party. The Minister was not very receptive to absolving subscribers from blame or responsibility if someone unknown to the subscriber was using his service provider. As presently drafted, this clause could create a subscribers’ blacklist which would follow the individual even if that person was innocent of any infringement. Our Amendments 83 and 114 in this group attempt to ensure that any list refers only to a particular subscriber to a particular service. I very much hope the Minister will be able to tell the Committee whether, if a person has stopped subscribing to a service and signed up with another ISP, or even if he returns to the same ISP at a later date, the list will start from scratch. Or will it be carried over? Similarly, if a person has two accounts with an ISP—perhaps a domestic one and another at work—will they be linked through this list? If these provisions allow for a blacklist to be created of people who have previously infringed copyright, and if an infringement list were to follow the subscriber around, would there not be data protection ramifications? Should there be provision for a method of appeal to avoid people being blacklisted for life?