YLE wants to use illegal methods to track down non-payers
People often argue that the state owned and operated public broadcaster YLE is actually autonomous from the state. But this is obviously not the case if its director, Mikael Jungner, has the power to subpoena citizen’s private data from individual companies…
YLE’s Director General Mikael Jungner says the public broadcaster might soon start tracking down unpaid tv licences through commercial channel customer registers.
Jungner says that if licence inspectors were given access to lists of pay channel customers, they could easily find the names of licence-dodgers. Around ten percent of Finland’s television viewing audience does not have a licence. Jungner says this is a considerable sum of money.
Fortunately it may be illegal for big brother to pry into your personal life like this…
Communications Minister Suvi Lindén says that information about customers paying for additional television channels may be protected by privacy laws.
“My understanding is that the current privacy laws don’t allow this kind of use of customer data. I’m sure the matter will be investigated thoroughly, and then we can take another look at the problem,” she says.
53,000 households have canceled their TV license over the recent migration-to-digital debacle which has lead to a decrease in revenues for YLE, and cost-cutting measures such as removal of TV and radio stations. Instead of taking responsibility for themselves, YLE has launched a hard-hitting propaganda campaign, pitting neighbor against neighbor – very remnant of MPAA & RIAA’s attacks on filesharers. And if that doesn’t work, it looks like YLE will just trample even more on our right to privacy.
