Is the UK Sniffing Wifi From Residents Homes With Drive-By Snooping Vans?

All in the name of making sure that every customer pays their fair share, it seems that enforcers in the UK will stop at nothing to make sure that no one is stealing unlicensed broadcasts.

As this video by James Corbett explains, the lengths that the police state will go to spy on their citizens, or at least make them believe they are being watched have no end.

BBC Now Training Its Secret, Likely Imaginary, Fleet Of Detector Vans On Your WiFi https://t.co/ra8wVAn4d8 #NewWorldNextWeek

— James Corbett (@corbettreport) August 9, 2016

via Tech Dirt:

Nearly a decade ago, we wrote about the fact that the BBC supposedly has a fleet of totally secret “detector” vans that drive around trying to figure out who was watching the BBC without paying for it. As you probably know, if you live in the UK, you’re forced to buy a BBC license if you have a TV or a TV turner card. And, for years, they’ve claimed to have had these magical detector vans. When we wrote about them in 2008, it was because a freedom of information request to find out about the vans was denied for the most ridiculous of reasons: revealing the details of the vans “would damage the public’s perception of the effectiveness of the TV detector vans.” In other words, the “vans” — if they exist at all — were more about scaring people into paying, rather than actually detecting those watching the BBC without a license.

Either way, those vans are back in the news, after the Telegraph reported that the vans have now been outfitted with apparent WiFi detection tools as well to go after people watching the BBC online without paying:

The Telegraph can disclose that from next month, the BBC vans will fan out across the country capturing information from private Wi-Fi networks in homes to “sniff out” those who have not paid the licence fee.

The corporation has been given legal dispensation to use the new technology, which is typically only available to crime-fighting agencies, to enforce the new requirement that people watching BBC programmes via the iPlayer must have a TV licence.

Video via the Corbett Report on YouTube.

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