More eNews December 2006

DTI and OFT publish new guidance for businesses on distance selling

The guidance cross refers to the electronic commerce regulations and also the privacy and electronic communications regulations and provides useful examples of how to comply with distance selling laws and what the implications of failure to comply are for businesses.

The guidance explains how the Regulations affect businesses and also what consumer rights need to be observed.

Businesses that sell goods and services over the internet or by phone or by mail order, should review the recent guidance issued by the Department of Trade & Industry and the Office of Fair Trading on the Consumer Protection (Distance selling) Regulations 2000.

The guidelines are available here.

WEEE update

We have recently been informed that WEEE Regulations in France have been updated so that as from the 15 November 2006, producers of electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) will have to pay fees to the relevant authorities for the recovery and treatment of WEEE .

If EEE was put on the French market before the 13 August 2005 then, as it was "historical waste" all producers had to meet the costs of managing the safe disposal of such products but did not have to disclose the costs of such disposal.

Now from the 15 November 2006 and until 13 February 2011 or 2013 (dependant upon particular categories of EEE), producers will have to disclose the costs of recycling for both historical waste as well as new waste.

Computer Misuse Act updated

The Police and Justice Act 2006 has recently been published and amongst other things, it amends the Computer Misuse Act 1990 extending the scope of a number of computer misuse offences.

The Police and Justice Act 2006 has recently been published and amongst other things, it amends the Computer Misuse Act 1990 extending the scope of a number of computer misuse offences.

 The Computer Misuse Act was drafted at a time when hacking was hardly a word in common use and when denial-of-service attacks and similar activities were not envisaged.

The Police and Justice Act 2006:

  • extends the scope of the hacking offence by amending the Computer Misuse Act Section 1(1) to read "A person is guilty of an offence if (a) he causes a computer to perform any function with intent to secure access to any program or data held in any computer or to enable any such access to be secured; (b) the access he intends to secure, or to enable to be secured, is unauthorised…"
  • provides for a person found guilty of hacking to be subject on summary conviction to imprisonment for a term of up to 12 months or a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum or both and on indictment, up to two years' imprisonment or a fine or both
  • amends the Computer Misuse Act to make it an offence to carry out any activity with the requisite intent or knowledge which causes an unauthorised modification of the contents of any computer. NB this wording falls short of what many security experts require to address denial-of-service attacks or the distribution of malicious code
  • provides for a new offence of making, supplying or obtaining articles for use in activities of computer misuse.

Whilst the amendments to the Computer Misuse Act are better than nothing, they still fall short of all that is required to address the threats to information security and to reduce denial-of-service attacks.

EC publishes new consultation on RoHS Directive

The European Commission has published a Consultation Paper on possible further exclusions of harmful substances from the RoHS directive.

Article 5(1)(b) of Directive 2002/95/EC (RoHS directive) provides that certain materials and components can be exempted from the substance restrictions contained in the RoHS directive where they have negative environmental health or consumer safety impacts.

The items considered for exemption now include:

  • Lead used for shielding of x-radiation emissions for CRT
  • Lead as soldering alloy in high performance communication electronic board and hexavalent chromium (Cr-VI)
  • GemCore 410 EMV
  • SAVBIT solder;
  • Sn-Pb soldering used in Ground-based Aeronautical Communication Equipment Manufacturing;
  • Transducers used in professional loudspeaker systems, using tin-lead solder
  • Tin-lead solder in the manufacture of professional audio equipment
  • Inventory of special ICS having tin-lead solder on/in leads/balls, used in specialist/professional equipment
  • Crystal Stones within the battery operated watch
  • EEE used for the broadcast and homeland security sector
  • AM186ES-V40 containing lead in used in the leads over plating and AM79C961AKC containing lead in used in the leads over plating
  • Cadmium sulphide or cadmium selenide in polymer based thin film transistor
  • Lead used in the soldering for surface finishing at the electric pole terminal on the electronic parts
  • Cadmium contained in the cadmium oxide of a thick film ceramic substrate
  • All electronics assemblies using lead in solder
  • Lead in electric overblankets for Hot Spot detection
  • MPC10 used in automatic vending machines to achieve the payment by card
  • Hexavalent Chrome Cr-VI when used as a passivate
  • Lead contained in circuit boards, obsolete and non-compliant Intel 80c188/86 EA\XL microprocessors, Analog Devices ADMC300 DSP, and NEC uPD7101 DART and hexavalent chromium
  • Component used in the manufacture of electric blankets and heating pads
  • Request to delete exemption for "Lead as impurity in RIG (rare earth iron garnet) Faraday rotators used for fibre optic communications systems"
  • Lead in Trimmer Potentiometer elements
  • Cadmium in opto-electronic components.

The consultation paper is available here.