Tony Bowden wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 18, 2001 at 12:05:41PM +0100, Philip Newton wrote:
> > I believe the reasoning given is data protection -- people
> > consented to have their name and number in a book but only
> > for the usual use: looking up a number by name. And that
> > people are not allowed to provide reverse search unless they
> > have the consent of all the people involved.
>
> I may be *completely* wrong on this one, but doesn't Data
> Protection work the other way around? i.e. as long as you state
> what you're doing it's up to people to opt out, rather than opt
> in?
Part of the problem may be that the data is generally gathered by German
Telecom, who publish the printed telephone books, and other companies who
wish to produce phone number CDs generally buy the data from Telekom. (The
price has been significantly reduced now, and I believe Telekom now is
obliged to sell the data.) And Telekom doesn't offer reversed phone searches
and probably isn't interested in them, so they probably don't state that
this may occur.
So if someone wants to collect data stating they want to use it for a
reverse search, they'd have to get hold of all the people all over again.
> Of course, this might be different in Germany, than in the
> UK, and I don't really know much about Data Protection in the
> UK either ...
Then again, I could be talking completely out of my hat here.
Cheers,
Philip
