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Wow, that's confusing. I know that I know very little about U.K. law, so I would appreciate if someone there could answer: - Do employers typically have law-e

Wow, that's confusing. I know that I know very little about U.K. law, so I would appreciate if someone there could answer: - Do employers typically have law-enforcement duties? - Is there a legal presumption of innocence---until proven otherwise---as there is in the U.S.? - Besides TV Licenses, is the BBC a judicial entity? I'm just trying to understand why the BBC may notify a non-law-enforcement agency about a possible violation of law.

matt4077 9y ago
> why the BBC may notify a non-law-enforcement agency about a possible violation of law Well, they are journalists, after all :) More seriously: these is a ton of stuff that happens that is both completely legal and somewhat bad. In the past, this grey area was policed by the community, using standards such as "politeness" or "etiquette" and sanctions such as "no longer inviting that idiot".
ghughes 9y ago
It's got nothing to do with the law. They're notifying third parties about people who they suspect of posting "offensive" content.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
dboreham 9y ago
Some aspects of UK and US culture are quite different and I suspect this is one. It has been a while since I lived there but I think the general idea is that it is silly to waste law enforcement resources on absolutely everything. Some things can be dealt with outside of the police and courts. Even the US has this with the RIAA/MPAA able to "tattle" on people who are file sharing directly to their ISP without a police report being filed.
- DanBC 9y ago
  Also, a bit of what the BBC is talking about is either defamation (not something the police get involved with) or "misuse of company resources" - and BBC only wants to use this stick to prevent some of the vile trolling some of their employees have to put up with.
JdeBP 9y ago
A lot of people are reading "will" for "may" and getting quite worked up. A more charitable reading is that this document is a rather ham-fisted way of saying: We've stated afore that your IP address is one of the pieces of "personal information" that we collect about you. If you ... do this ... then we will use that information to locate and notify the owner of the computers that you are using, or some point in the chain between those computers and us. Be aware that if the owner of the computers that you are using is your school, your employer, your organization, or your Internet service provider, they are likely who is going to be notified and your use of these computers for this purpose will be disclosed to them.

matt4077 9y ago

> why the BBC may notify a non-law-enforcement agency about a possible violation of law Well, they are journalists, after all :) More seriously: these is a ton of stuff that happens that is both completely legal and somewhat bad. In the past, this grey area was policed by the community, using standards such as "politeness" or "etiquette" and sanctions such as "no longer inviting that idiot".

ghughes 9y ago

It's got nothing to do with the law. They're notifying third parties about people who they suspect of posting "offensive" content.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

dboreham 9y ago

Some aspects of UK and US culture are quite different and I suspect this is one. It has been a while since I lived there but I think the general idea is that it is silly to waste law enforcement resources on absolutely everything. Some things can be dealt with outside of the police and courts. Even the US has this with the RIAA/MPAA able to "tattle" on people who are file sharing directly to their ISP without a police report being filed.

DanBC 9y ago
Also, a bit of what the BBC is talking about is either defamation (not something the police get involved with) or "misuse of company resources" - and BBC only wants to use this stick to prevent some of the vile trolling some of their employees have to put up with.

JdeBP 9y ago

A lot of people are reading "will" for "may" and getting quite worked up. A more charitable reading is that this document is a rather ham-fisted way of saying: We've stated afore that your IP address is one of the pieces of "personal information" that we collect about you. If you ... do this ... then we will use that information to locate and notify the owner of the computers that you are using, or some point in the chain between those computers and us. Be aware that if the owner of the computers that you are using is your school, your employer, your organization, or your Internet service provider, they are likely who is going to be notified and your use of these computers for this purpose will be disclosed to them.