---

Digital Economy Bill [HL]

Does the noble Lord not agree that this vagueness as to what will suffice as reasonable measures will have to disappear by the time that the Bill becomes an Act? We will be asking individuals to take measures that they will reasonably expect to protect them from prosecution, should evidence be adduced against them. That must be absolute. Ofcom will have to specify a list of measures that an individual can take. If an individual has taken them, they should be free from prosecution. Does the noble Lord not agree that we have to be clear about this, presumably through Ofcom? To leave individuals in a state where they are not absolutely sure what they have to do will be immensely unfair and cause a lot of heartache and difficulty. That has been demonstrated by the current misbehaviour. Being accused of something that you find hard to defend is extremely wearing on people at the other end. I am sure that the noble Lord will have received as many e-mails as I have from people who are distressed as a result of what is being done to them. We must provide clarity and certainty. If we provide it for individuals, it is there for libraries, too. I entirely agree with the noble Lord—I cannot see why libraries should be exempt. After all, they are unlikely to be hosting this stuff on their own networks. The problem relates only to people plugging their computers into wireless networks; libraries will anyway have to be careful about that sort of thing, because of all the problems with viruses that that brings.