Forum Topic

Councillor Costello/Mark Stevens finally caught!

http://www.ealinggazette.co.uk/ealing-news/local-ealing-news/2012/11/22/ealing-councillor-faces-calls-to-resign-over-fake-online-identity-64767-32286364/Well done to the forum-ites for their help!Another dodgy councillor shopped

Charles Asante ● 4880d42 Comments

Message removed

Charles Asante ● 4877d

Jimmy Carroll asked -Michael you can call me Jimmy that is my name, as long as you dont call me Colm or Mark.You could have said yes I believe everything Ray Wall said instead of giving me a history and grammar lesson.It's not grammar lessons you're in need of "Jimmy".It's a keyboard with a question mark key. And in case you're wondering it should be on the next to bottom row, right next to the shift key. If you had one it would have a ? sign on it. Presumably your keyboard simply has a gap there instead. Or maybe you've been tapping away at it all these years with nothing appearing on the screen and thought no more of it.Although funnily enough, on this forum at least, only yourself, Colm Costello, and Mark Stevens appear to use keyboards with these missing question mark keys. Perhaps you all bought them in the same shop ?Now there's a coincidence, eh ?Maybe if all three of you wrote to Anne Robinson on Watchdog about it, all using differentIP addresses naturally, she could take it up with the manufacturers on your behalf.From this point on "Jimmy" you can litter your posts with question marks to your heart's contentfor all anyone cares, but nothing you can possibly say or do will ever persuade me for one, that you're not Colm Costello.  I'm not really concerned with the behaviour of the leader of the Council here, "Jimmy".All I know that has been established beyond reasonable doubt is that Cllr Costello made use of a free local website set up to provide a forum for residents, in order to adopt a wholly bogus identity in order to attack another Councillor by fabricating a totally bogus and mendaciousaccount of an exchange that took place between them.    Clearly just as in the case of Cllr. Costello the gravity of such a charge hasn't really struck homewith you. So that's two things you share - the defective keyboards and this blind spot as to the gravity of Cllr. Costello's situation. As with other victim of Cllr. Costello's defamation, it can only be assumed that the solereason Cllr Costello hasn't ended up in Court is simply because having no obvious and visible means of support over and above the expenses he draws as Councillor - which would soon dry up should the proverbial hit the fan - he's simplynot worth suing.There's an old saying "Jimmy" - whenever you find yourself at the bottom of a hole and you want to get out of it - the first thing you need to do is to stop digging. And this applies whether there's the three, two, or just the one of you down there.michael adams 

Michael Adams ● 4877d

I'm a bit confused here, is Cllr Costello your mum?

Bernadette Clover ● 4877d

Michael you can call me Jimmy that is my name, as long as you dont call me Colm or Mark.You could have said yes I believe everything Ray Wall said instead of giving me a history and grammar lesson.What is your opinion of the leader of the councils behaviour here.

Jimmy Carroll ● 4877d

Jimmy Carroll asked -..."Michael. Have you ever heard an Irish joke.They usually hint at Irish stupidity.If you believe Cllr Wall wasn't hinting that Cllr Costello was stupid because he is Irish then you will believe anything"...Yes indeed Jimmy, (you don't mind me calling you "Jimmy", I take it ?) I have indeed heard plenty of Irish jokes. Just as I've also heard plenty of Kerryman jokes which are popular among denizensof the other 31 Counties, and plenty of Culchiejokes as are popular among the self - styled Jackeens of Dublin's Fair City. All of which hintat stupidity. Which while of possible interest to cutural  ethologists etc is, unfortunately  of absolutely no relevance here. Since my last post I did some Googling and hereis Clr Wall's own account of the exchange.(The preceding paragraph has been omitted as Cllr Wall wrote this while under the impression thatMark Stevens and Colm Costello were in fact two different people and that his reaction to Cllr Costello had caused more offence than it actuallyhad. i.e zero. The rest stands on its own merits) ...''As a child and youth I spent a large part of my life living in Galway with my mother's family and when I hear a Galway accent I sometimes lapse into one myself as it is so particularly familiar to me and Cllr Costello's accent is identical to my own mother's. ''It happened at a point in the meeting when Cllr Costello was making false accusations, pointing his finger towards me in what I perceived to be a menacing fashion and saying 'Ill tell you now..'  I merely repeated his own words back to him in question format saying, 'Oh will you now? Go on then tell me now!'http://nnet-server.com/server/common/eairishrow001.htmYou see Jimmy nobody likes a bully - or at least likes to be seen supporting a bully. Here was Cllr Costello hectoring Cllr Wall, pointing his finger at him in a menacing fashion etc, And so when Cllr Wall was able to reply in kind, the reason some people laughed was simply because they saw the bully being taken down a peg or two. Not because he was Irish or anything else.And Cllr Costello realised this as well as anyone else at the time.You see Jimmy nobody, but nobody would ever get laughs from suggesting Cllr Costello was thickno more than they would with Dev. A "cute hoor" for sure, but thick ? Never. (Not going too fast for you am I, er "Jimmy" ? ) Oh and BTW I notice you avoided answering my question. Which was would someone who did a convincing impersonation of Terry Wogan be thereby implying that Terry Wogan was thick ?Oh and one last thing "Jimmy". Your second sentence there - "Have you ever heard an Irish joke."Now English language purists might suggest that such a sentence might be more correctly writtenas  "Have you never heard an Irish joke ?"However English usage is a broad church and you are of course free to express yourself in any way you wish. However if you don't want your posts to be identified with those of the two, sorry make that one, other poster on the Forum who adopted similar usage then perhaps you might be well advised toask somebody else to vet your posts. Otherwise all those trips to the Internet Cafe will be a complete waste of money. michael adams   

Michael Adams ● 4877d

My big problem with Costello is that he has ruined this forum for me. How can I explain it? He has changed a mature debate, admittedly with diverse views, a sort of textbook into a fictional rag-like novel. I stopped using Phil Taylor's blog because when I looked as though I was winning the argument he edited me out and said he was bored. I feel like Costello/Stevens/Jimmy?(you see I have lost trust) has thrown a brick through my front room window. Costello is a cheat and a wrecker and has reduced this forum to "Where do I get my brown hampster dyed purple?" Upsetting for me but sad for him that he has wandered into this silly way of committing political suicide. The question is David Millican are you going to go down with him or cut him off before he drags you under?This is after all a moral question.

Arthur Breens ● 4877d

Michael. Have you ever heard an Irish joke.They usually hint at Irish stupidity.If you believe Cllr Wall wasn't hinting that Cllr Costello was stupid because he is Irish then you will believe anything

Jimmy Carroll ● 4877d

Eric Alan Leach asked -" The real question is this hoohah is:Why is Colm Costello ashamed about putting his name to his views? Why does he feel he needs a nom de plum to express his views?"----------------------In my opinion, Cllr Costello needed to adopt a nom de plume * as nobody else would ever suggest that in imitating his mode of speech, as Cllr. Wall clearly succeeded in doing during this meeting, this was in some way "mocking" Cllr. Costello's Irish accent, and thereby implying - by some strange logic known only to Cllr. Costello himself, that"The Irish are Thick".So that presumably according to Cllr. Costello were someone to successfully impersonate Terry Wogan, this would not only be "mocking" Wogan's Irish accent, but would again be implying that "The Irish are Thick", to use Cllr. Costello's favourite phrase of that particular moment.This of course is nonsense. Cllr. Costello was merely playing for sympathy as the traduced Irish personexcept he came badly unstuck. As clearly nobodyelse present at that meeting but himself took exception to Cllr Wall's behaviour. Because it wasn't the "Irishness" of Cllr. Wall'simpersonation that cut Cllr.Costello to the quick, but the fact that Cllr. Wall had presumably caught his sneery aggressive interrogatory tone** to a tee, the very same tone and phraseology which as Cllr. Wall. explained on his blog he'd remembered one of his Irish relatives using, possibly when reprimanding a child. This clearly came as a  very big shock to Cllr Costello hearing his own agressive interrogatorysneery tone reflected straight back at him.And in public, too.His response - his failed attempt to play the Irish card - and solicit an apology for a non existent insult, not only to himself but to all Irish people is despicable behaviourby any standards. It goes without saying that this is solely the responsibility of Cllr. Costello himself and is no reflection on Irish people in general - many of whom would presumably be glad to disown him.michael adams* Its quite possible for posts by two different people to originate from the same IP address.People working in the same office - or different members of the same family for instance Providing that is, they both have access to the same computer or different computers connected tothe same router. However Cllr. Costello's response to Mark Stevens implies that they are complete strangers  which would appear to rule out that possibility.  ** the aggressive and sneery tone can be inferred from Cllr Costello's general approach as evidencedin much of what he writes. It's maybe fortunate for National, if not International Politics that Cllr. Costello presumably really does believe that such an approach is an obvious vote winner which will take him all the way to the top of the greasy pole. 

Michael Adams ● 4878d

The real question is this hoohah is:Why is Colm Costello ashamed about putting his name to his views? Why does he feel he needs a nom de plum to express his views?Is he so ashamed of what he believes and writes that he needed to hide behind the fake persona of Mark Stevens in order to express his views?Ealing Labour Party should have kicked out Councillor Zahida Abbas Noori this Summer for interfering with a Police investigation and planning enforcement notices.Ealing Conservative party should kick out Councillor Colm Costello now for his passing himself off as someone else in a digital public place.It's not like me to defend Councillor Bell, but his vilification as 'Witchfinder General' in proving Mr Costello's duplicity is just a smoke screen by Ealing Tories who want to hide behind it rather than banging Councillor Costello to rights.

Eric Alan Leach ● 4878d

Like you said Max it would be interesting to find out who Terry Hill is they were the first person to link C.Costello and Mark Steven as been the same person and they have not been heard of since we all have our suspicions who they are.I wonder if the leader of the council could find out their IP address for us.

Jimmy Carroll ● 4879d

You did! But it was quite a small if in there.

Max Duley ● 4879d

Max I said IF, read it again

Jimmy Carroll ● 4879d

Re  online privacy and surveillance is a topic I take a interest in from a layman's perspective.                                              xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx         thanks, I must say you responded with remarkable speed. And your posts on this whole thread show of what importance and significance the matter has to you.

Tony Price ● 4879d

Purporting to be someone else smacks of criminal behaviour.Like the guy who stole my new cheque book in transit in the postal system and wrote a cheque, forged a signature and paid it in to "his" building society account. This reduced my account by £1500;nice work eh? We rely on trust sometimes backed up by law in this society and have done for many years. "Swearing of oaths followed by MY mark", was a common end to a legal contract. The mark was often an "X". For me CC was motivated by politics and you could say this could be excused on the arguement that "all's fair in love and war". However this forum is about the only place we can have a political debate and CC's actions debase that and therefore debase our democracy. Doesn't his boss DM understand that simple principle?

Arthur Breens ● 4879d

All this uninformed speculation about the law was getting a bit boring, so I just phoned the Information Commissioners Office helpline and described the scenario, asking where in the process (as it has been described by the Gazette) anything dodgy might have happened.The response I got was that it’s *possible*, but not definite, that the disclosure of IP address info was in breach of the data controller’s (i.e. NeighbourNet) responsibilities under the DPA.There is no issue with the request for that data (from Mr Bell) with regard to the DPA. Asking for it isn’t a problem. Once he had it, there is no DPA problem with him making public the fact that he’d received confirmation of the same IP address being attached to posts from two names. I asked an additional question based on Jimmy's earlier suggest that Mr Bell had, or might have, shared the IP address data with a journalist. I can't find any reason for him to believe that happened. In any case, the ICO representative was not particularly concerned at the idea that, after the IP data was received from the data controller, that data being further shared. Effectively, once it was released by the data controller, it was "public data". Just to reiterate: this was an entirely hypothetical question based on Jimmy's post, not on any public reports relating to this story that I've seen.So according to them, the only DPA issues from all this might hit NeighbourNet. In NeighbourNet’s email to me, they said that “this categorically does not breach our obligations under the Data Protection Act". As the ICO rep wasn’t clear (he would have needed to understand the processes behind the decision to release the data, which none of us have knowledge of) and NeighbourNet presumably have experience of this process, they may have nothing to worry about.

Max Duley ● 4879d

As we see in many twitter issues recently what you write online can be accountable, but the fact the IP address have been disclosed to the council leader linked to the persons name and in this case his alias, that part surely is against the law, Yes I agree that IP addresses are visible if you want to find them but the difference is when they are associated to a name or an address.What the point of data protection if the leader can just ask for them !!!PS I am not defending what Colm Cosello did, it was pretty stupid, but at the same time to many people are trying to make a political gains when really both parties need to stop acting like children and get on with running our council

Declan Devine ● 4879d

Jimmy - what reason do you have for suggesting that that anybody passed IP address data to a journalist? There's no suggestion of that having happened in the Gazette article.

Max Duley ● 4879d

Max...firstly I'd like to say I like your thoroughness,it's good to have facts inasmuch as "facts" are facts.  It's easy to have a second/third etc. screen names on fora,there used to be a few husband and wife members,there may still be and presumably they would have the same ISP address. No harm there providing they use their own name.  The problem comes when the system is abused as in the Colm Costello instance,i.e. having a convenient alter ego waiting in the wings to "do the dirty work" that he felt unable to do under his own name. Sad!  Yes.. like you I'm impressed by the Colm apologists filibustering,they won't achieve anything,he got hoist on his own petard trying to mug forumites. What he did probably wasn't illegal but moraly it stinks.

Tony Wood ● 4879d

What Costello did was stupid, but probably wasn't illegal. If I see him, I will tell him this. What the leader of the Council did might be illegal. If he gave the IP address to a journalist, that is data that identifies the owner, which is covered under the data protection act. After all we have seen at the Levesson enquiry this year, for the leader of the council to give this to a journalist, just to silence one of his critics, should worry all of us.

Jimmy Carroll ● 4879d

There is much nonsense talked about data protection.I have had situations where people have refused to believe me despite referring them to the registrar's web site where things are written down in black and white.

Tony Colliver ● 4879d

Not au fait, as in I'm not qualified to state anything on the issue with absolute confidence, but online privacy and surveillance is a topic I take a interest in from a layman's perspective.As to how "they" do it, it's probably simply be a case of updating the name associated with the log-in. This forum makes it easy to change the name associated with subsequently published posts, without the need to set up separate accounts. Whether doing so would provoke any action on the part of the site admin is really down to them, how and if they are concerned about monitoring such behaviour, and whether they receive any complaints/correspondence about it.If somebody wanted to post using multiple names without being detected, there are a few ways of achieving that, but the vast majority of people don't know how, or don't care because they have no need to. People get caught doing these things because they don't understand the relative ease with which they can be detected IF somebody is actually checking. Or, because ego leads them to believe their deception is too smart to raise suspicions.

Max Duley ● 4879d

I wrote to the email address posted by Anne Marie (aka Editor on this site).I said it would be useful to know:• What information or type of information was requested from NeighbourNet.• What information or type of information was provided to Mr Bell.• Was the actual IP address itself shared?I didn't expect an exact response, and I didn't get one.Their response:"We can't respond on specific cases. As a general policy if there has been misuse of our one of our discussion boards and an injured party makes a formal request for information we will, in certain circumstances, provide it. Such information could include an IP address. Doing so categorically does not breach our obligations under the Data Protection Act."My guess is that they will have taken legal advice on this process as they will encounter such requests from time to time. I suspect the allegations of data protection breaches are intended to be a distraction. It's certainly been effective in derailing the discussion here.

Max Duley ● 4879d

Re    regulated activity, especially if the IP address is connected to an individual's name.               xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx     Extract from Gazette article "  In response opposition leader David Millican has accused Mr Bell of breaking the Data Protection Act by releasing the information. Mr Bell said Hobbayne ward councillor Mr Costello should resign for his underhanded tactics. "           Interesting latter comment when there are suspected posters on the Forums who are in effect the same person but using different names. Question is how do " they " do it, who reveals IP addresses to whom if indeed it is a question of one person revealing to another..Mr Duley does indeed seem very au fait overall  with the matter.

Tony Price ● 4879d

The whole Costello/Stevens affair is rather like this recent affair involving Wonga and Labour MP Stella Creasy.  Again it was detected by IP used for comments left on a public forum and  I'm not aware of any DPA concerns being raised by the company involved, in fact they've apologised:http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/nov/20/mp-demands-apology-tweets-wonga

Thomas Barry ● 4879d

Not quite the whole story of course, as it has been common practice to re-issue the same IP address to a given customer wherever possible for many years now - i.e. if it has not been reassigned to another customer in the mean time - something which is only likely to happen if somebody's broadband goes down for an extended period of time.

Tony Colliver ● 4879d

RudzikWere you aware that Colm Costello had posted under the pseudonym Mark Stevens and then denied it before this thread was begun?I was pretty surprised by Com's behaviour at the time but it seems to have taken ages to reach a wider audience.

Phil Kay ● 4880d

Actually Max, you do have a good point about the behaviour of Costello, however it pales into insignificance compared with Bell's admission that he sought peoples' private details on the basis that they were "troublemakers".

Rudzik Nieszefc ● 4880d

And what about Bell's promises when he was elected? What about looking after the disabled and the ill...What right does he have to cast the first stone? And will we hold him to account or just blindly re-elect him?Ealing Council has a long history of making life unpleasant for those who complain about it.The powers that local councils have to obtain peoples e-mail activity, intercept their post, and monitor who they are telephone calling are draconian and almost Stalinesque. If you do not believe please look up local authority surveillance powers - they are less accountable than the police are!

Rudzik Nieszefc ● 4880d

I doubt he needed them. As a politician he probably wanted them as he saw political capital in exposing a rival as a fraud (even though Cllr Costello had already effectively done that to himself with his misplaced posting using the "wrong" account). By coincidence, there's a public interest element to that, which doesn't seem to have reached a wider audience until now. Rightly or wrongly, more prominent politicians have lost their jobs over similar behaviour (not sure if that's happened in the UK).Other members of the public would have had a valid concern over the fact that a local councillor was unwilling to honestly represent himself. If he can't do that, some might ask how he can properly represent his constituents.Bell and NeighbourNet may have screwed up. That will no doubt be determined. And it's undoubtedly true that the council's decisions, led by Bell, affect more people in more drastic ways. But I can't see how anybody can reasonably defend the actions of Costello either. Minimising the significance of one person's actions because you dislike somebody else to a greater degree just looks like partisan relativism. You could come up with a million things that are worse than lying to your constituents, but that will never make it acceptable or excusable, and an elected representative abusing his constituents in that way can not reasonably be described as trivial in my opinion."No doubt a denial-of-(council)-services attack might be planned for those who objected publically to an unnecesary car park in Southall. I think Mr Costello could almost claim that he was testing Ealing Council to see to what extent it was monitoring (spying?) on the residents of Ealing, and Bell was planning WHO KNOWS WHAT for them."Stalin was deluded, paranoid and saw conspiracy all around him. He also had near-absolute power. I'm glad nobody here does, politicians or posters.

Max Duley ● 4880d

By the way, it IS trivial.Did you know that George Orwell's real name was Eric Blair? Do you know what Mark Twain's real name was???Bell is only trying to stomp on anyone who disagrees with him. Remember when he promise no cuts in services?

Rudzik Nieszefc ● 4880d

Incidentally, I am equating Bell's activities with coming from the same mindset as Stalin, not threatening anyone.It is that: someone disagrees with him, it is over an issue that needs fixing, so rather than fixing the problem lets get rid of anyone that complains (talks, or thinks) about the problem or the issue.WHY did Mt Bell WANT or NEED the IP addresses of people that were discussing open issues publically?

Rudzik Nieszefc ● 4880d

You may have heard of a person by the name of Stalin. He used to kill the people that disagreed with him...Who is Terry Hill?By the way, the Ealing Gazette got it wrong. Most IP adresses are not unique. In V4 IP addressing they are issued for periods of time and are then passed on to other users when you have finished using them. The new V6 addressing is unique however is very rarely used. To get a real persons details from their IP address would require asking the Internet Service Provider (ISP) who was using that address at that PARTICULAR time. Two people using, say, Virgin internet services could be issued the same IP address at different times. Only Virgin would know who. Anyone "seeing" that address in the public domain would only be able to resolve it back as far as Virgin, for example. It would require a court order to get Virgin to release those details as to who was using it at the time if it was a V4 address. This then raises the question of WHY Mr Bell wanted addresses that would probably require court proceedings to find out who they belonged to? What was he planning to do with them??? BIG QUESTION.No doubt a denial-of-(council)-services attack might be planned for those who objected publically to an unnecesary car park in Southall. I think Mr Costello could almost claim that he was testing Ealing Council to see to what extent it was monitoring (spying?) on the residents of Ealing, and Bell was planning WHO KNOWS WHAT for them.

Rudzik Nieszefc ● 4880d

What appears to be the deliberate, repeated and apparently calculated deception of members of the Ealing public by an elected representative using a sock-puppet account to criticise political rivals:http://appasp.ealingtoday.co.uk/server/app/forum/ShowMessage.asp?ID=807547http://appasp.ealingtoday.co.uk/server/app/forum/ShowMessage.Asp?ID=806387Denial of that deception when suspicions were aired, and a rather rude denial at that, considering it appears to have been true: http://appasp.ealingtoday.co.uk/server/app/forum/ShowMessage.asp?ID=808645Disappearing from the forum after making a stupid mistake that revealed the deception (posting as Colm Costello from the Mark Stevens account): http://appasp.ealingtoday.co.uk/server/app/forum/ShowMessage.asp?ID=816737All of your points notwithstanding, do you really believe that this sort of behaviour is "absolutely trivial"? Aside: I wonder who Terry Hill is/was.

Max Duley ● 4880d

I wonder how Mr Bell can justify the resources to undertake this type of activity? It would be interesting to know if any of the local authority powers that allow Ealing Council to snoop on suspected council tax and school catchement area dodgers were used in discovering this absolutely trivial activity?Isn't Mr Bell's time not better spent in trying to find ways of resurfacing roads that are falling apart in areas other than Southall, and in providing replacement facilities for the disabled and the mentally ill that have been destroyed by him? And what about the much-vaunted Ealing Council apprenticeship scheme that he launched which has been all but axed leaving many would-be apprentices in the lurch (you didn't know about that one - hardly surprising Ealing's PR and marketing people have been all too busy cozying up to he Gazette about Mr Costello)? Perhaps his time would be better spent re-building that rather than wasting more precious resources on such activities? Ah No! He has to bend his pen to coming up with yet more explanantions why North Acton needs a beautified transport interchange and Southall a new and unnecessary car park, and there is always the rebuilding and resurfacing of the entirely fit-for-purpose Longfield Road next to the town hall. Such a shame that the disadvanted and the advantaged council tax payer both suffer as their elected leader keeps trivial party politics at the fore in the greatest depression that we have had since the thirties - what a MAN!

Rudzik Nieszefc ● 4880d

As mentioned previously NNET editors responsibilities are updating the front news page of the site and the production of newsletter. We have no powers relating to (or moderation of) the forum.This is dealt with directly by Neighbournet.Enquiries relating to forum matters please direct to info@neighbournet.com Annemarie

Editor ● 4880d

"No company, web site, or ISP can give out details of IP address to anyone but the Police in an criminal investigation" Which section of which law says that?In any case, that statement is technically impossible. Companies, websites and ISPs "give out details of IP address" billions of times every day in the normal usage of the internet. For example, IP address data is contained in the headers of every email sent and received, and therefore by necessity is shared between third parties via companies, websites and ISPs.On the other hand, handing over stored IP address data from one party to another on request probably is a regulated activity, especially if the IP address is connected to an individual's name.But I don't think it's absolutely clear that that has happened. We only have the Gazette article to go on (at least that's the only source I've seen, keen to see others if they exist) and while it suggests that happened,  I wouldn't trust the Gazette to be a reliable source of technical information. Or indeed any other kind of information. We're big fans of the Ealing Gazette in my household, but only for its comedic (or should that be tragic?) qualities.Simply confirming that posts from two user names used the same IP address doesn't have any DP implications that I can think of, IF the address itself wasn't revealed. Again, that's IF the IP address wasn't shared. The Gazette article suggests it was.The site editor could confirm, if she was so inclined.

Max Duley ● 4880d

No company, web site, or ISP can give out details of IP address to anyone but the Police in an criminal investigation, so the fact that the IP details have been confirmed as one person, naming that person and reading the story about it on a newspapers website has to be breaking the data protection regulations.

Declan Devine ● 4880d

It's not necessarily the case that there has been a second wrong.An IP address can, in some circumstances but not all, be considered to be personally identifiable information. If all we have to go on is the Ealing Gazette article, it's worth pointing out that the accusations of data protection breaches appear to come from a partisan source, seeking to divert attention from the apparent behaviour of an elected official of the same colour.It's also worth pointing out that if all we have to go on is the Ealing Gazette article - it's in the EALING GAZETTE. Given the journalistic standards and quality of that publication, nothing should be assumed to be factually accurate in the article.The article states: "In response opposition leader David Millican has accused Mr Bell of breaking the Data Protection Act by releasing the information."What information is being referred to here? Has the IP address been "released" by Mr Bell? If not, I don't see how he can have broken DP law, unless he actively encouraged or conspired with a third party to break the law. If the information referred to is simply the fact that two user accounts used the same IP address, I don't think any DP official would give a hoot. That's not protected information as far as I am aware, and it's not personally identifiable information.If the article is exactly correct in saying that "Mr Bell received the IP address" from the Ealing Today site admin, then perhaps the Ealing Today site admin has breached DP regulations by sharing that IP address data. Also, perhaps not. If however, all that happened was that the admin confirmed the IP address attached to both the councillor's public posts and his sock-puppet posts were the same, then I can't see that there has been a breach. No personal data will have been divulged in that case. The sock-puppetry was public, not private. His posts under his own name are a matter of public record. His posts under a false name are a matter of public record, and of public interest. This wouldn't excuse the illicit sharing of an IP address, if that has happened, but the fact of the sock-puppetry was already clear when the councillor accidentally posted a comment in a discussion here using one account, which he had clearly meant to post from his "other" account, and then disappeared from the site when caught at it. I forget which way round it was, but the IP address issue doesn't confirm anything that wasn't fairly obvious already.The Gazette article is explicit in saying the IP address was handed over, and if true, that MIGHT (but might not be) dodgy. The relevant DP officials or the Information Commissioner will no doubt be asked to confirm.Nice little distraction from the councillor's behaviour though, eh?

Max Duley ● 4880d

But two wrongs dont make it right !!!

Declan Devine ● 4880d

yes butCostello is caught!

Charles Asante ● 4880d

I may be wrong but I don't think that IP addresses would fall under the remit of the DPA, sounds like a counter backlash to me.

Nathan Brown ● 4880d

So the council leader and this web site have broken the data protection act rules in publicising the fact, surely a more serious offence than the councillor creating an alias to post on this web sites forum, not to mention the waste of the council leaders time !!

Declan Devine ● 4880d