BBC Now Training Its Secret, Likely Imaginary, Fleet Of Detector Vans On Your WiFi

from the is-this-really-a-good-use-of-resources? dept

Nearly a decade ago, we wrote about the fact that the BBC supposedly has a fleet of totally secret "detector" vans that drive around trying to figure out who was watching the BBC without paying for it. As you probably know, if you live in the UK, you're forced to buy a BBC license if you have a TV or a TV turner card. And, for years, they've claimed to have had these magical detector vans. When we wrote about them in 2008, it was because a freedom of information request to find out about the vans was denied for the most ridiculous of reasons: revealing the details of the vans "would damage the public's perception of the effectiveness of the TV detector vans." In other words, the "vans" -- if they exist at all -- were more about scaring people into paying, rather than actually detecting those watching the BBC without a license.

Either way, those vans are back in the news, after the Telegraph reported that the vans have now been outfitted with apparent WiFi detection tools as well to go after people watching the BBC online without paying:

The Telegraph can disclose that from next month, the BBC vans will fan out across the country capturing information from private Wi-Fi networks in homes to “sniff out” those who have not paid the licence fee.

The corporation has been given legal dispensation to use the new technology, which is typically only available to crime-fighting agencies, to enforce the new requirement that people watching BBC programmes via the iPlayer must have a TV licence.

A researcher interviewed in the article suggests -- without actual knowledge -- that the system could work in a manner in which the BBC's iPlayer deliberately sends packets of certain sizes, and then the van could use a packet sniffer to look for matching sized packets, without actually capturing any of the actual internet traffic. In other words, it might make use of certain forms of (you guessed it...) metadata. Of course, this is all speculation, and given the earlier reports on the van's Potemkin Village nature, it pays to be skeptical that the vans really do anything at all, beyond trying to scare people into paying licensing fees. After lots of people ran with the Telegraph's original claims, it now appears (thankfully) that at least some reporters are finally skeptical of these special new "WiFi snooping" vans.

Even if the vans don't really work (or exist), it still should serve as a clear reminder of how surveillance efforts are at least a constant temptation for those in power, allowing what was officially put in place for "national security" to creep into totally unrelated areas. If media companies could actually build a van to cruise around and sniff WiFi looking for pirates, does anyone really think they wouldn't do so?

Filed Under: detector vans, surveillance, tv, tv licenses, uk, wifi
Companies: bbc