Who authorises BBC covert surveillance?

Here is the source document it is a big PDF file
Office of Surveillance Commissioners - Inspection Report


"BBC is undertaking a very specific form of covert surveillance."

Here's the authorisation process as I understand it from reading that report:

Because of human rights concerns, the BBC's use of surveillance is subject to the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act.

Before surveillance is permitted to be executed on an address these steps must be followed:
1. First an applicant must make a written application requesting authorisation for survellance of that specific address, stating the reasons why that address is targeted. 
2. The application is then evaluated by a gatekeeper.
3. The application is then evaluated by one of the two authorising officers.
4. Only then can the surveillance (for example detector van or handheld device) be executed by detection operatives.

Who is the applicant? One of the tv licence enforcement officers (or whatever they are called) i.e. a Capita employee.

Who is the gatekeeper? One specific high-up Capita employee whose name is redacted from the report.

Who are the two authorising officers? Two specific high-up Capita employees named in the report who are granted this power under RIPA regulations.

Who executes the surveillance? Capita employees.

I have recently received several written threats of surveillance, but now I can rest easy, knowing that the written application, to spy on my family, will never get through that strict and independent authorisation process.

Where's the sarcasm smiley when I need it?

Two-faced BBC

The BBC has threatened me with enforcement visits, detection visits, court summons, fine, court costs, plus they have fabricated out of thin air a "no licence needed" statement which I never made.

Most worrying of all, is that the BBC have already falsified all the ingredients they would need to fraudulently apply for a search warrant.

One thing is for certain though - every 3 months they will happily continue to take £37.62 out of my bank account.

What is that for, you may well ask?
A charitable contribution to thank them for the pleasant tone of their letters perhaps?

Actually it's payment for our valid TV licence.
Yes we have one, we always reliably pay, we have done for many years, we are amongst the BBC's very best customers.

BBC ‘defectives’ plague couple

"have always had a television licence."
"bombarded with warning letters"
"six years"
"70 documents, including 12 law-enforcement letters"
"my integrity is being challenged"
"a lot of taxpayers’ money is being wasted"
"an investigation will be taking place and they risk being taken to court"

Click here for the full Lynn News report

Blame it on the bizarre!

SPOOF

Blame it on the bizarre!

TV Licensing has today revealed a some of the implausibly feeble excuses the BBC has given when questioned about their harassment of honest TV Licence holders. And it’s full of tall tales. From the sublime to the ridiculous, the BBC has been particularly inventive in their attempt to excuse their threats against innocent paying customers.
Some of the more bizarre excuses given by the BBC included:

• "Errors will happen"
• "We accidentally had the customer's address duplicated in our database"
• "We had a number (more than 2) of slight variations of the customer's address in our database"
• "We harassed the customer for six years because we accidentally got the customer's first initial wrong"

While shifting the blame on to incompetent duplicate (or triplicate or quadruple) database entries, customers faced a raft of far more inventive tales, telling one customer "when you paid us you selected the 'new license' option on our website so it's your fault" or fobbing off another customer with "we mistakenly took the money twice from your account".
Despite the innovative excuses given by the BBC, the BBC has done absolutely nothing to fix their own incompetence and continues the practice undeterred.
Jow Shan, TV Licensing spokesperson, said:
“No matter how creative these BBC excuses, some people watching TV with a valid licence will continue to receive threats from the BBC of detector vans, court summons and a fine of up to £1,000. We do recognise that some people may be struggling to understand why they get harassed when they have always paid faithfully, and if this is the case, we would urge them to not bother contacting the BBC, as the BBC reserve the right to continue threatening them regardless.
Whilst we do have a successful track record in complete incompetence at running database systems, we would always rather that someone pay for their licence twice rather than just once.
For further excuses, please contact the TV Licensing Press Office.

This SPOOF was inspired by This BBC Webpage

BBC harass Lincoln TV Licence holder for 6 years

Click here to read the "This Is Lincolnshire" report

This Lincolnshire man always faithfully paid his TV licence.

And what does the BBC give him in return?
Six years of threats and insults

BBC threaten honest Ayrshire man for 14 months

 Click here to read the full Ayrshire Post article

"tv licensing snoops are making life a misery for a man who faithfully pays by direct debit"
"The letters started 14 months ago"
"a barrage of threatening letters"
“I’m absolutely livid about this”

BBC threaten honest Chichester customer

"x xxxxx of Chichester has been told that inspectors might appear on his doorstep at any time with a warrant to search his premises for an illegal TV because he does not have a licence. The fact that he has paid handsomely for a licence every year and has spent the past three months trying to prove it has not put these people off. They are not interested in facts"
Click here to read the full Guardian article

BBC send 90 abusive letters to paying customer

An honest man who has a valid tv licence, repeatedly threatened and harassed by the BBC, 90 letters

 Click here to read the full Daily Telegraph article

"the BBC had been holding a number of slight variations on his address..."

"...staff were unable to detect duplicate records on their database using his name and post code"

From those two quotes alone it should be obvious to anyone that the BBC are incompetent at running the licensing database systems.

BBC steal money from customer

BBC steal £140 from honest customer's bank account.
Click here to read the BBC customer's experience
And then the BBC have the barefaced cheek to not instantly pay back what they stole. 

Mini-TV in dolls house - licence needed?

I fitted one of these tiny working mini-TV sets in my daughter's dolls house. Now the dolls are receiving abusive mail from the BBC. I think the toyshop must have given the BBC their address. The BBC claim that even though the tiny dollshouse is in a corner of the sitting room inside our real house which does have a valid TV licence, it is (under the Communications Act) a seperate address, and requires its own licence. They are threatening to post a miniaturised detector van through my letter box which they will drive across my carpets to the dolls house by remote control and spy on the dolls through the tiny windows.

( http://www.textually.org/tv/archives/2008/04/019712.htm )

BBC detection van frequencies

BBC detection vans IMO use EM frequency range 405 THz to 790 THz.

red-ink

A suggestion to a certain company somewhere in the "proximity of London". You use an extraordinarily large amount of red ink. Here's a way to cut your material costs, by (literally) sinking to new depths. Why not start up your own red-ink drilling company in whatever continent the biggest red-ink reserves are. And buy your own ocean tankers to transport your own red-ink to England, and build a large diameter red-ink pipeline from the port direct to Marylebone. But please do not send any more of your silly red-ink letters to me, or I shall taunt you a second time:

A one-dog race

Which is the most incompetently run database system in the UK?

Joke: what are shorter than ...

Joke: What are shorter than TV licensing and considerably less annoying?

Answer: TV lice.

Ok yes its a bad joke, (as anyone who has had an infestation will know).

Nudge nudge: Buying TV Cloaking technology

There's a certain place of purveyance in my town which secretly sells TV cloaking technology (It looks just like a household supplies shop but that's just a front).

Go in and say "Please may I buy some TV cloaking technology which blocks leakage of electromagnetic emanations in the [redacted*] frequency band please" and you won't have much luck. They will convincingly pretend to not know what you are talking about.

But go into the same establishment and ask for the covert products by their secret  codewords which sound innocent and you will succeed.

I went in and asked for "blinds" (giving the salesperson a nod and a wink) and also I asked for "curtains" (with a nudge) and I assure you I came out with two types of TV cloaking equipment.

The only good thing that has ever come out of TVL

The only good thing that has ever come out of TVL

- is this early commercial by John Cheese

Brilliant
Maybe that's because it contains no threats.

A shaft of light when all around is darkness

Review: Push A Little Button, 1956

Review: Push A Little Button, 1956

Here is the video



Song written by Tony Hatch, and sung by his sister Ninette Hartley, 15 at the time. Not sure who the dancer is. A glorious song, well-orchestrated. Described by some as an earworm, because once you have heard it, its hard to forget, but in a pleasant way. And the filming is tasteful, inventive and a joy to watch, every bit as addictive as the music.

Actually its a protest song. Listen carefully and you may hear it as a protest against increasing automation at the expense of people, and maybe even more. The superficial apparant childishness of the song, once you see through it, making the underlying protest all the more powerful.

It is therefore especially ironic that this original song was re-used in 2010 in an advertising video for BBC Capita. The good news is they did not use any of the beautiful original video, instead (thankfully) creating their own video, which sits at the opposite pole of artistic filmmaking talent.

Now the sad irony is, the BBC Capita advert is designed to say how easy it is to buy or renew a tv license on their website, just push your mouse button to buy or renew they say, its so easy.

Strange, the advert forgets to mention the people who paid for their tv license online and then get persecuted by BBC/Capita and then get blamed by the "BBC Trust" for, yes believe it or not, pushing the wrong button on their website.

So my recommendation is to leave the 2010 abomination unwatched, and instead revel in the beauty of the 1956 original.

An amazing appeal hearing - Part 2

.....continued

Now let's take a sample of some of the BBC Trust's conclusions

"The Committee concluded .... that the original event that led to the complaint was the appellant’s partner selecting ‘new licence’ rather than ‘renew licence’ on the TV Licensing website....."

Read the earlier part of the appeal again - the website made it impossible for the partner to make the payment by selecting "renew licence" and the only way possible was to select "new licence".
The BBC seem to be under the impression that a licence covers only one person. Here's some news for you BBC, a licence covers an address, doesn't matter which of the householders buys the licence.


".... there are situations where an address that previously required one licence could change to require two licences ..."

Obviously not applicable in this case, which is a single address. And think about it - using exactly the same warped logic, the BBC could continuously harass every honest licence paying household in the country.

"....there may be scope to further reduce the risk that a person in a licensed home is nevertheless challenged as a licence fee evader..."

That was the understatement of the year.
Yes there is enormous scope - and here is how to do it - drastically alter the BBC's flawed licensing databases and systems.

"....This would require some form of more proactive checking by TV
Licensing...."

Yes indeed, and here is a proactive check the BBC should do (even though it may seem to the BBC rather revolutionary) -
To do a simple address lookup, BEFORE they harass their own paying customers. Trouble is, I doubt if they can?

"....the onus remained on the person renewing to follow the appropriate process....."

Again I am shocked. BBC do you realise that if an address has a valid tv license, any threats you make against that household are incompetent and immoral?. Don't blame it on honest people.

to be continued ..............

An amazing appeal hearing by the BBC Trust

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/assets/files/pdf/appeals/tvl/tvl_may11.pdf

Excerpts from the appeal hearing in bold print
Interspersed with my commentary


".... The appellant has held a TV licence for several years. The previous licence expired on 30 June 2010. The complainant’s partner renewed the licence online (with a new email address) on 1 July 2010 ...."


Ok so here we have a couple of good customers with continuous tv licence coverage


".... selecting the “new licence” rather than the “renew licence” box. This was due to there being no facility for the TV licence to be renewed in a different name..."


The customers did absolutely nothing wrong, they bought a tv license.



".... TV Licensing did not know that the new licence purchased was to renew the previous licence, although they knew it was at the same address ...."


What? I find myself almost speechless at the BBC's barefaced incompetence in spouting that ridiculous statement.



".... They therefore assumed that the appellant’s previous licence had expired and not been renewed, ..."


Bizarre thinking by the by the BBC, which makes Monty Python straightlaced in comparision


"....and they therefore wrote a reminder letter in July 2010 and a forceful letter (including “HEREBY GIVEN OFFICIAL NOTICE” on the envelope) in August 2010. The appellant complained about receiving “threatening” letters which were unjustified...."

So a couple of excellent long-term BBC paying customers did absolutely nothing wrong, they acted honestly and legally. The BBC threatened them. A disgrace.



To be continued............

Lassie joke

A Joke ----------------------

Why is the BBC TVL database called Lassie?

Because its a bit of a dog if you want to do anything as straightforward as a simple address look-up.

;)

BBC harass paying Gloucestershire customer

"A Citizens Advice Bureau in Gloucestershire reported that their client was angry as she kept receiving threatening letters from TV Licensing for her former home, despite the fact that she had previously informed them that her house was empty and awaiting sale. The client had actually bought a licence for her new home, and described being threatened with official visits and prosecution as ‘harassment’. When she complained to TV Licensing they informed her that they would stop the letters but that this would only remain the case for three months."
Click here for the Citizens Advice Bureau report

East London - valid licence holder harassed by BBC

"A Citizens Advice Bureau in East London was helping a client dealing with a bailiff that was chasing her for alleged unpaid TV licence fees of £403. ....... The client was unable to understand she was being harassed over her TV licence when she was up to date with her payments made via direct debit. ....... the client had been mistakenly harassed for payment of a licence fee that she had already paid for. Inadequate record keeping by TV Licensing caused this problem"
Click here for the Citizens Advice Bureau report

SW England - BBC take valid License holder to court

"A Citizens Advice Bureau in the South West reported that their client paid for his TV licence by cheque but for some reason the payment was not registered on his TV Licensing account. In spite of providing proof of this transaction in the form of the stub from his cheque book and a copy of his bank statement the client was taken to court for non-payment."

Click here for the Citizens Advice Bureau report