Consultation response to the gambling license inquiry SOU 2017:30

IT&Telecom companies have been offered the opportunity to respond to the consultation. The response was written together with Bahnhof, Com Hem, Hi3G, Telenor and Telia.

The inquiry's directive contains a proposal on warning notices in which the Government is clear that a licensing system solution is needed to protect licensees from unfair competition. The inquiry is therefore to investigate what measures may be needed to effectively stop unlicensed operators from acting on the Swedish gambling market and submit the necessary proposals. The inquiry writes that "the purpose of opening up and regulating the online gambling market is to guide consumers towards responsible, reliable and verifiable offers as far as possible".

To support such a market, the proposals include warning messages and the introduction of tax liability for gambling consumers' winnings from unlicensed gambling companies. The proposals are unfortunate and could have major consequences, according to IT&Telecom.

The report's proposal means that internet service providers will be forced to direct their customers' traffic via a special page, which we assume would be administered by and refer to the Swedish Gambling Authority, before they are allowed to access the open network/internet. In a technical sense, it is a traffic control and blocking system that is being introduced, only that the "blocking button" has not been pressed. Something that the report also opens up for. This is worrying. For ISPs to have to block users, content or services under a regulatory framework for licensed gambling services is an ineffective, disproportionate and unacceptable scheme.

In the experience of IT&Telecom and the co-authors, the introduction of this type of technical system for monitoring and blocking can easily be extended over time. An example of this is the legislation on traffic data retention. During the investigation and implementation, it was argued that the storage and disclosure of traffic data should only be used as investigative support for particularly serious crimes such as terrorist crimes. Within two years of its introduction, the scope of use was broadened to include fines. While this may seem proportionate in an individual case, the cumulative effect can have far-reaching and undesirable negative effects over time.

In the case of warning messages, a further aspect is that the ISP has no reason to monitor what content the user accesses on the internet. If the ISP is obliged to redirect traffic to a warning page on the basis of the user's searches, it gives the user the feeling that all their searches are monitored by the ISP. More and more people are living more and more of their lives online and, in a democratic and open society, internet operators should not engage in censorship and redirection of internet traffic. Only in extreme cases should warning pages be updated, and documenting child sexual abuse online is the only obvious acceptable exception.

The consultation response therefore highlights some objections to blocking in principle:

•  encourages risky behavior by users who try to get around the block
• reduces transparency and trust in the internet as a communication channel
•  hides the problem rather than addressing it, thereby contributing to illegal services being offered on the darknet or similar environments instead
•  may interfere with users' privacy

In light of the above, the stricter rules on personal data processing in the forthcoming General Data Protection Regulation should also be taken into account when assessing the proportionality of the proposal on warning notices. The response considers that this analysis is missing from the report.

As the report itself argues, the effectiveness of a blocking system is questionable. The effectiveness as well as the proportionality of a "soft" form of blocking can be questioned on the same grounds. The inquiry's reliance on apparent effectiveness also risks leading to other parts of gambling regulation being designed counterproductively.

IT&Telekomföretagen therefore urges the government to disregard the report's proposal on warning messages.

Link to the full consultation response