Virgin Media Announce use of Cview for Deep Packet Inspection

We talked about the use of CView last week but now the technology appears to have a found a partner: Virgin Media.

The technology developed by firm Detica will use Deep Packet Inspection in order to determine the level of piracy on a network. This form of inspection is believed by privacy groups to be an invasion of the online privacy of individual users.

A previous company to trial a similar technology called Phorm has failed to gain a foothold in the UK market after rising privacy concerns and secret tests of the service were discovered.

However, Virgin has signed up to work with CView on a trial basis as part of its planned new music service.

Detica claim that the technology is totally anonymous and, complies with their own ?strict design principles? to ensure privacy. It will be a full automated process that?s working to dedicate the level of privacy overall rather than that of individual users.

However, a detail of the real technology behind the service and how much data it will collect from individuals is still unknown. At least Virgin Media are announcing trials openly, but it?s still hard to see such technology as anything more than an invasion of privacy.

Despite this, such procedures could become law in the near future should the government have their way, whether ISPs like it or not. Executive director of Broadband at Virgin Media, Jon James said:

?Understanding how consumer behaviour is changing will be an important requirement of Virgin Media’s upcoming music offering and, should they become law, the Government’s legislative proposals will also require measurement of the level of copyright infringement on ISPs? networks. Detica’s CView? technology potentially offers a non-intrusive solution which enhances our understanding of aggregate customer behaviour without identifying or storing individual customers’ data.”

It?s not yet known when these tests are due to begin and whether or not they will be rolled out across the entire Virgin network.

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