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BBC claims new TV license detectors won’t snoop on WiFi networks

From September 1st, anyone who watches the BBC iPlayer needs to pay the £150 annual TV license fee, whether they own a TV or not. Since this news hit, there have been claims The BBC will begin using WiFi packet sniffers to detect who is streaming without a license. Needless to say, most aren’t on-board with the BBC snooping on private internet connections. Since then, the broadcaster has released a statement to clear things up.

The initial report came from The Telegraph, which theorised that the BBC would use new detector vans that would snoop on in-home WiFi packets and analyse them to determine who was streaming iPlayer.

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Since then, the BBC has denied that this will be the case, saying that there has been “considerable inaccurate reporting” about future TV license detection. While they did not elaborate and explain what the plan will be, they did say it doesn’t involve “capturing data from private WiFi networks”.

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KitGuru Says: If there is no account system in place for those watching the iPlayer online, and the BBC won’t be snooping on WiFi network traffic, then I do struggle to see how detection will work. How do you guys feel about the TV license? 

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11 comments

  1. First guess, Some sort of app/browser that requires verification of ID, I.E credit card or driving licence, Or even TV license.

  2. Or the snoopers charter “meta data” being used by the BBC to determine the location of the IP accessing it. Considering the BBC is tied to the government/country it wouldn’t surprise me.

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  4. I don’t own a TV. I don’t watch iplayer, and I don’t use WiFi at home (all wired). Job done.

  5. I cancelled my license a number of years ago, I also don’t have sky, virgin or freeview tv and don’t have an aeriel to my house, I refuse to pay for something i don’t watch, I’ll be making sure no devices I own come with bbc iplayer preinstalled and removing it, I only ever watch dvds. bluray or downloads I won’t pay an organisation that has/had so many kiddy fiddlers in their employ, if the tv license is removed and bbc starts to be subscription only or to show adverts then i may then consider getting virgin tv or something, not to watch BBC though, don’t see why i should pay sky or virgin a monthly subscription then have the BBC step in and tell me that i should pay an extra £150 per year even though i don’t watch and never will watch BBC again, it’s a joke to try and prosecute people for not paying a license to the bbc when they don’t watch it, Imagine if you got a sky bill in 1 day saying you will have to pay extra for a channel you don’t watch, imagine how many customers would tell sky to take a run and jump!! Then there’s these new powers of detecting if we watch iPlayer or not, if they snoop on my wifi then I won’t be happy, but then again, my main PC is through ehternet cable so no wifi to that, might just have to hard wire everything in and turn off wifi to avoid these paedo scum

  6. You’ll probably just have to associate a license number with a bbc account to watch iPlayer or something simple like that

  7. There isn’t any detection now and that probably won’t change. The BBC have never had the authority to police the license fee and I don’t see why that would change.

  8. Unless people are using Wi-Fi access points without WPA2 this is redundant. Encrypted connections aren’t going to get feasibly snooped.

    They’d also have much more luck just requiring people to make an account and pay an iPlayer subscription fee like any other fucking streaming service. “TV Licensing”, as a company (or brand of the BBC’s), is guilty of postal harassment and should be made a thing of the past.

  9. Irishgamer Gamer

    MI5 and MI6 are already snooping 24/7…….so information is there already!

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  11. Well This is Just plain impossible, most Wifi is Encrypted unless you are using an open wifi this isnt a problem, since very few people use open Wifi this is a waste of licence fee payers money these vans have no way to tell what you are streaming on your wifi