BBC’s privacy threat

Alot has changed since the BBC was founded. The cost of the first licence fee, in 1922, was 10 shillings – or 50p in today’s coinage. Now it is £145.50, and much harder to justify. The body has slipped far from its founding values, while Britain has accumulated so much choice in entertainment in the past decade that the concept of compelling people to pay a fee on the ownership of a television is absurd. Doubly so when increasing numbers prefer to watch things online.

To tackle the migration from gogglebox to computer screen, the BBC has resorted to desperate measures. From next month, the corporation will be sending out detector vans to capture information from private Wi-Fi and thus deduce who is live-streaming its programmes without paying. The technology is normally only available to crime-fighting agencies and, obviously, poses a huge risk to the privacy of the innocent. It will only increase the caseload of the courts: last year some 173,966 licence-fee evaders in England were brought before magistrates.

The slightly scary thought of the BBC spying on internet users only highlights the ridiculous nature of its funding structure. Earlier this year, the then government decided to allow it to continue to rely on the licence fee, while forcing it to accept small reforms to its regulation. If the BBC does not change in the long-term, however, it will price itself out of the market and lose the faith of consumers. Only last month it was revealed that the bill for BBC staff salaries has risen from £977 million to £990 million, with the median salary now £43,000. The idea that someone on a salary a fraction of that amount could face a criminal court for watching five minutes of

Bargain Hunt online is plainly unjust.