Privacy concerns.

[Enquizitive]

I see posted that EE do not provide detailed web search histories, even to account holders.

I see posted things like:

Any browsing history retained by EE is only kept for legal & judicial purposes & will only be released to the proper authorities upon Court Order.

How accurate is this?

I know the bill just shows amount of data used and dates.

It does not show what was accessed or viewed.

Is there a legal reason why EE do not provide these, even at the request of the bill payer?

[Alex_M]

Hi @Enquizitive,

It is highly accurate. One reason it would not be ordinarily given to the account holder is likely that the data is not in a standardised and readable format. You would likely just see a long list of network connections to/from different IPs, number of packets sent/received etc. This has little/no relevance to anyone unless they are being investigated for something out of the ordinary.

I'm sure you could probably submit a freedom of information request and get that data, if you really wanted. It doesn't say that account holders cannot request it. Edit: this would likely be rejected as a FOI request as it would take too long.

Thanks,
Alex

[Enquizitive]

So if my son had a phone, that I paid for, I could actually request a website browsing history.

But this would not be in a readable format?

Basically, I want to see if certain sites have been accessed without actually having to obtain the device.

[Alex_M]

Hi @Enquizitive,

I'm not sure honestly. I'd have thought a FOI request to EE would allow you to get that data, but FOI requests can be refused if it requires too much time/staff to obtain the data, so thinking about it now, the likelihood is you won't be able to get that information.

You wouldn't be able to see 'browsing history' as such. It would likely me a massive list of network connections, which make zero sense to the average joe. For example, one page view of this community has just resulted in 31 network requests from my laptop. Now can you imagine how many requests are made per day by your phone? Thousands! This data is intended to be used for legal purposes only (dealing with internet crime and misuse).

If you want to restrict what sites your son can access, then I recommend looking at content lock.

Thanks,
Alex