Menu
  • About
    • Staff
  • Blog
  • Contact Us
  • Partners
  • Training Courses

NETUCATION Blog
Be Smart & Safe Online

Menu
  • Home
  • Contact Us

Blog

15Feb

Who can spy on your Internet browsing?

webmaster February 15, 2013 Respond

Internet service providers explain what South Africa’s RICA law requires of them

Internet service providers (ISPs) in South Africa must be able to divert a user’s traffic to an “interception point” on-demand as a requirement of RICA,Cybersmart CEO Laurie Fialkov recently told MyBroadband.

The Regulation of Interception of Communications and Provision of Communication-Related Information Act (RICA) was gazetted in 2003 and, after a number of extensions, service providers finally had to fully implement it by June 2011.

Part of the demands RICA places on ISPs, Fialkov added, is that they must be able to see what a user is connecting to, as well as broad classification of what the traffic is.

“For instance we can tell if it is adult content or video streaming or e-mail,” Fialkov said.

This type of interception may only happen when a person in law enforcement receives permission to do so, however.

Fialkov highlighted sections of RICA which specify that only retired judges, or a judge of a High Court not in active service may grant a “direction” to this effect.

This is the only way they are able to inspect a user’s traffic, Fialkov said, as they don’t store any information about which URLs or IPs users connect to.

Laurie Fialkov

Laurie Fialkov

 

Franco Barbalich from Axxess and Derek Hershaw from Mweb reiterated this, saying that they don’t store specific data about their subscriber’s Internet usage.

“At an individual user level we track total usage so that we can apply capping and so on,” explained Hershaw, who is head of Mweb ISP. This is for Mweb’s capped user-base.

Mweb also tracks the network protocols and services that are used by its subscribers at an aggregate level, Hershaw said. This is to do traffic management and shaping.

Asked how this data is stored and who has access, Hershaw said that it is secure.

“We treat it the same way as all our customer information, he said. “In terms of the aggregated data we are referring to here, only a small group of staff who do our traffic management [has access].”

Derek Hershaw

Derek Hershaw – MWEB ISP MD

 

source: mybroadband

Share:

  • Email
  • WhatsApp
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Reddit
  • Twitter

Google Ads




← Previous Next →

Featured Professor

Internet service providers explain what South Africa’s RICA law requires of them
Internet service providers (ISPs) in South Af...

Read more

Hours & Info

88 Xavier Street
Robertsham
Johannesburg
2091
+27 011 210 3900
help@netucation.co.za
Dinner: Monday to Friday, 09h00 to 17h00
  • facebook

Recent Comments

  • malerato sekha on Contact Us
  • Trevor Watkins on Baby’s privacy exposed on LinkedIn
  • Ramon Thomas on Contact Us
  • Thandokazi yawa on Contact Us
  • Webmaster Nisha on Why Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg wants school kids to learn coding

Copyright © 2021 NETUCATION Blog.

Powered by WordPress, Supreme, and EducationAcademy.

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.