The Digital Economy Act: What Next?

If you follow me on Twitter, you’ll have noticed that I’ve been a bit quiet on the Digital Economy Act front lately. This is due to the General Election and the need to get the facts with regard to what can and can’t be done, realistically, when there are so many issues that the new Government have on their agenda. Many of these issues, including scrapping ID cards and the underlying National Identity Register; ending the detention of children for immigration purposes are of the upmost importance and should be actioned immediately.

We have a brief window before the Act comes into effect to make a coordinated effort to push for the repeal of the ill-considered clauses. Today I’ve had the pleasure of meeting up with Lib Dem MP and DEAct crusader Julian Huppert and he has been able to assure me that there are plans afoot within the Commons to this regard.

In order to succeed, though, Julian and the other anti-DEAct MPs need our help. I’ve outlined the action points below.

If we are to succeed in repairing the flaws (clauses 9 – 18) in the Digital Economy Act 2010 we need to get it on the Goverment’s agenda. The best way to do this is by drumming up support for an Early Day Motion which has already been tabled.

EDM 17: Effects of Digital Economy Act 2010 on Use of the Internet

That this House believes that sections nine to 18 of the Digital Economy Act 2010 should not have been rushed through in the dying days of the last Parliament; further believes that these sections have large repercussions for consumers, civil liberties, freedom of information and access to the internet; and calls on the Government to introduce early legislation to repeal those provisions.

At the time of writing the EDM has been signed by the following 12 MPs:

• Huppert, Julian (Liberal Democrats, Cambridge)
• Mulholland, Greg (Liberal Democrats, Leeds North West
• Wright, Simon (Liberal Democrats, Norwich South)
• Swales, Ian (Liberal Democrats, Redcar)
• Lloyd, Stephen (Liberal Democrats, Eastbourne)
• Corbyn, Jeremy (Labour, Islington North)
• George, Andrew (Liberal Democrats, St Ives
• Sanders, Adrian (Liberal Democrats, Torbay)
• Donaldson, Jeffrey (Democratic Unionist Party, Lagan Valley)
• Hancock, Mike (Liberal Democrats, Portsmouth South)
• Williams, Stephen (Liberal Democrats, Bristol West)
• Edwards, Jonathan (Plaid Cymru, Carmarthen East and Dinefwr)

We need to get as many MPs to sign the EDM as possible in order to raise the profile of the issues within the Government. As an example, the EDM that lead to the Climate Change Act 2008 was signed by 412 MPs. If we can get into the hundreds, it will put a deal of pressure onto those who control the schedule for the Governement’s agenda.

Please write to, email, telephone or visit your MP and ask them to sign EDM 17 – you can find their contact details via They Work for You.

Make it clear that we’re not asking for a wholesale repeal of the entire Act, just a targeted removal of the controversial clauses (9 – 18) which deserved to have had full Parliamentary scrutiny, but were denied such due to the pressures of the “wash up”.

We also need to get as many private citizens, rights holders, ISPs etc to back the EDM. This fight is going to be all about numbers, we showed during the early days of the campaign that there are a significant number of us – we need to get that fervour back for one last concerted effort. I’m hoping to get in touch with Jim Killock and the Open Rights Group team to see how best we can achieve this and will update this post as things progress.

Thanks to everyone who has continued to fight the good fight over the DEAct, it’s not over yet!

Update: If your MP is interested in getting more involved in the issues surrounding the Digital Economy Act, they may wish to contact Eric Joyce MP who is setting-up an All Party Group on the subject.