By and large, the most popular internet companies like Apple, Google, Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook reside in the US. As such they are protected by the first amendment of the US constitution. For access to their software, we all did a deal. We ticked a box which gave us their services free, and in return they use our data and make an enormous financial killing from it. This cannot be right or fair. But that’s by the by. Robert Hannigan, the new director of GCHQ, must know that they will protect this data for fear of legal action by any of their subscribers (Privacy not an absolute right, says new director of GCHQ, 4 November).
The answer therefore is for the UK to take a lead by creating a world body (much as we did with the World Service and the British Council) for the internet, and for starting the journey to agree some fundamental rules which cover cybercrime, child pornography, terrorism et al. We are rather good at soft power and some of us have argued that’s all we have left in foreign policy.
Derek Wyatt
Founder, parliamentary internet group and Oxford Internet Institute
