Mass surveillance will not be used to catch people who watch catch-up BBC content following the introduction on Thursday of new rules to close the “iPlayer loophole”.
Enforcement body TV Licensing said it expected the vast majority of people to “obey the rules” which extend the requirement for a licence beyond live viewing.
Reports had suggested that the BBC would use a new “fleet” of detector vans to monitor Wi-Fi connections for people using iPlayer. However, a spokesman for TV Licensing told Press Association it did not plan to carry out any form of mass surveillance.
“We expect most people will simply obey the law,” he said. “We are not going to use mass surveillance techniques, we are not going to ask internet providers for IP addresses, and in fact we will simply use existing enforcement processes and techniques which we believe to be adequate and appropriate.”
Neither the BBC nor TV Licensing are prepared to discuss the techniques they use to identify people who do not have not paid the £145.50 a year fee but still watch BBC content. However, they are authorised to use various forms of more targeted surveillance under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act.
In July the government introduced legislation to close the loophole, which the BBC claims is costing it as much as £150m a year. The move was agreed as part of negotiations over the future shape and funding of the corporation which is having to make major cuts after being told to cover the more than £700m cost of providing free licences to the over-75s.
Though people watching catch-up BBC content online will now be asked to confirm that they have a licence, there are doubts about how to enforce the rules at scale. The BBC has said it does not have plans to introduce a sign-in linked to licences.
A BBC Source told the Guardian on Wednesday: “There are no plans for people to enter their licence details into BBC iPlayer at present because TV Licensing has a range of enforcement techniques they’ll continue to use. We’ll look at how effective these are before considering whether an extra verification system is required.
