The UK Digital Economy Act was announced during the Queen’s Speech in 2009, and since then has been the subject of huge controversy, appeal and delay. The row it has sparked with privacy groups, such as The Pirate Party have been over its proposals to increase surveillance on web users’ activities in order to clamp down on any illegal action such as music piracy.

This Queen’s speech in 2012 looks to be another potentially controversial one for the digital industry with David Cameron announcing in April this year that he wanted to see “gaps” in national security plugged, which included plans for increased internet monitoring. A draft bill covering this is reportedly due to be announced in the Queen’s Speech 2012.

The original UK Digital Economy Bill, which allows for the prospect of those suspected of online piracy being blocked by their ISP has still not been implemented, however it looks more likely to go into force as of April 2012 after two Internet service providers lost their appeal against its current form.

The Act, rushed through parliament in the dying days of the Labour government in 2010, was opposed by major ISPs, such as Talk Talk and Sky, as they were unhappy with the implications of policing a ‘blacklist’ of suspected file-sharers being placed on Internet service providers’ shoulders.

It’s not necessarily a done deal, even now. The ISPs could well appeal to the Supreme Court next. The BBC reports that Talk Talk is “Considering its options.”

Loz Kaye, leader of the Pirate Party UK, says in a statement in reaction to the news

“This decision brings the draconian Digital Economy Act another step closer. The coalition government must be clear now once and for all on whether it supports this anti-Internet piece of legislation.”

Kaye is a 40-year-old composer and lecturer at the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts and in his nominations post, he said: “It was the Digital Economy Act that transformed me from member to activist. I felt a burning shame that as a musician our union was amongst those pushing for a flawed piece of legislation threatening surveillance and censorship.”

The entertainment industry, by refusing to adapt quickly enough to a world in which technology is advancing at an ever greater speed, and forcing the issue of copyright rather than coming up with new ways to monetise their content is bad. Really bad. Bills like those mentioned above are dangerous precedents that threaten to take away the freedom we’ve gained through the Internet.

***Update***
The Queen Said:

“My government intends to bring forward measures to maintain the ability of the law enforcement and intelligence agencies to access vital communications data under strict safeguards to protect the public, subject to scrutiny of draft clauses.”

So, as expected, the Queen’s Speech has been used by the coalition to outline developments related to the plan to expand the reach of monitoring (read: spying) laws covering ISPs, to log a much bigger slice of our online activity (e.g. Skype and FBook access). This will be done to everyone whether or not you have ever committed a crime… Oh, and it’s also at a measly £2bn cost to the taxpayer.

An important fact related to this is the the existing Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA) means that the ISPs are already required by law to maintain a log of our internet, website and email accesses, but only basic data like IP addresses, times and date stamps, etc for a twelve month period, and this information is only accessible with a special legal permission called an interception warrant. The crucial point here is that actual content is now on the agenda for snooping! The ISPs will be logging the content of every ‘private’ communication you make online, and storing it.

I don’t know about you but this seriously, seriously worries me! Not because I have anything to hide (honest!), but more on the macro-level, and the many ways that this information could get into the wrong hands and be misused.