A human rights body has asked the European Commission, which is used to assess the legality of software to analyze file-sharing in the United Kingdom.
This software is CView and used by the service provider Virgin Media to determine the safety of the law on illegal traffic in the network.
The EC has said that control the use of software, following a complaint from Privacy International.
Virgin Media, however, that the software has not eliminated the risk to privacy.
Privacy International has concerns about the software, developed by Detica control.
Uses so-called deep packet inspection, which means that one can recognize a real file name, making it possible to understand what content is legal and what is not.
According to Alexander Hanff, head of the ethics network to Privacy International, the current use of such software in the laws of the United Kingdom.
Regulation of investigatory powers Act (RIPA) interception of communications is a crime, regardless of what you have with the data, he said.
Mr Hanff said he would file a criminal complaint if Virgin Media CView used.
He said the software is similar to the advertising technology company Phorm on individual web application was developed for surveillance in targeted ads.
Studies of technology in the UK were put on hold while the EC considers how it was tested.
The British government is in the process of drafting legislation that share illegal files can be identified and dropped from the network was able to see.
However, this software is not on this project, said a spokesman for Virgin Media.
I’ve never had to collect identity. This is not an answer, said Asam Ahmad.
Instead, the software used to determine how much network traffic is illegal.
We want to understand what we are sharing files illegally can be reduced. This will tell us things like the names of the best sets ten songs, and the rate of legal to illegal, said Ahmad.
Virgin Media is launching its own music service.
Mr. Ahmad Said had no date set yet for the procedure, but told the BBC that the movement in three peer-to-peer known to monitor the illegal trade and legal software, Gnutella, BitTorrent and eDonkey.
He admitted that may have 40% of the data of the Virgin of clients with their media checked and confirmed that he could not inform these plans have been before.
He acknowledged that this could not justify the network is technically difficult to perform deep inspection technology based packet IP addresses to identify the individual, but stressed it was the program at this time.
No These contracts have been established, and where to locate people or judge them, a role for content providers, not us, he said.
Virgin Media is an ongoing education campaign, including letters to those who have been identified as a download of illegal content on the network.
Andrew Ferguson, editor of the news site Think Broadband broadband, said the study could be a double-edged sword.
If Virgin can create a basis for P2P traffic illegal , ie they can see how the law applies, and perhaps best plan to the letter of the transmission side of things, he said.
However, it appears that Virgin Media not only has to look deep packet inspection – BT, for years, he said.
You can do exactly what we do Virgin, he said.