The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland: a free, democratic country… in which you require a paid licence in order to be permitted to own a television set.

IMPORTANT: Although I am pretty sure about my convictions in this post, a conviction is exactly what you are heading for if you take my advice without a pinch of salt. I am not a lawyer - this is not official legal advice.

It all started with a letter

Upon returning to university for another year earlier this month, I discovered the following letter in my pigeon hole:

Well, that sounds quite scary. The letter begins framed by the official looking logo and Status: Unlicensed in the top right, as though this is some sort of police case file. It then goes on about “the law” for a bit before ending with the vaguely threatening statement that they will “have to investigate” if you do nothing.

Well, if you were a poor, busy student who isn’t used to getting these kinds of letters, you may jump right into action, springing onto your computer to cough up the £174.50 that the TV licensing brigade are demanding of you.

Except this letter is full of bollocks and you quite likely don’t owe anything.

A few things to notice

First, I’d like to draw attention back to the top right hand corner in which the letter boldly proclaims your unlicensed status. Underneath, a reference number was clearly provided but has been censored. I have a strong suspicion that the reason that this was done is because the TV licensing bullies have, in fact, no idea who is living where in university accommodation (more on this later) and have merely sent a similarly threatening letter to the university demanding that they distribute a carbon copy of this letter to all the students. They have no idea if you have a licence or not and are merely mass mailing every student in the college.

Secondly, I’d like to point out this letter’s tone: it isn’t delivered as balanced legal advice and nor is it delivered as an affirmative accusation of you having done something wrong. It is better described as a piece of persuasive writing in favour of you purchasing a TV licence. It’s as though the letter were a sleazy politician, never directly accusing you but all the time keeping up the essential presumption of you being on the defensive.

Well, you might need a licence (you almost certainly do) - you should probably check (but I really think you do!)

Notice phrases such as “Most students do” - without any qualification at all about why most students do, simply generalising all students; “Chances are you’re not covered by your parents’ licence either” - again without any further explanation leading those uninformed to believe that they have automatically done something wrong.

All of this, of course, printed underneath the bold heading proudly proclaiming that you must “Know the facts”.

And then, compressed right down into the bottom paragraph, is the option to inform them that you don’t need a licence is finally mentioned in a single sentence. Compare this with the several paragraphs explaining why you do need a licence. Don’t let it go unnoticed also how the heading reads “If you do nothing, we’ll have to investigate” - and yet, up until the final sentence in this letter, the only options an unaware reader would be aware of are either to pay up, or to do nothing.

Having sat and read through the full letter a couple of times and having noticed a few of these interesting “features” in the letter, I was almost ready to chuck it in the recycling. Then, though, I decided it would be interesting to take a look at their website.

The utter disgrace of a website

First of all, using a .co.uk domain for a government licence fee domain is beyond ridiculous and really has no excuse whatsoever. The UK government has exclusive control over the gov.uk domain and yet couldn’t fork out the couple of pounds it would cost (at maximum) to set up a subdomain for purchasing a licence fee? What would be the problem with tvl.gov.uk? All the training that we pour into people’s brains to spot scams and fraud are undone by decisions like this. If I am interacting with a government service or agency and - more importantly still - paying something that the ONS classifies as a tax, I expect to be on a government domain. I certainly do not expect to be on a domain which is for “commercial entities and purposes”.

Moving past the questionable domain choice, the website itself looks like some sort of Adobe Flash game off Friv in about 2011.

You have to love how big of a killjoy this website is too: “Love live TV? Well knock that off because you’ll be needing a licence first for that fun”.

After sifting through the ridiculous menu, I spotted (hidden down in much smaller text in the corner) the link titled “Declare no licence needed”. Notice again that this is given as a secondary option to the option to pay them off set in bold in the top right.

Now, I initially thought that this was done so that people would read through the “Check” page first to decrease the number of people falsely claiming to not require one accidentally. Except, the check page is, again, nothing to do with checking if you need a licence and is instead around six different links to the exact same purchase page with no mention of not requiring a licence.

In fact, the page in which you declare to not require a licence actually does the best job of telling you whether you need one of not.

And even this is omitting some key details, as you’ll see later on.

The page then goes on to ask you very direct questions about your usage of technology to double check you aren’t accidentally incriminating yourself. Except, that’s what they would be doing if they were honest because they’ve still got one final trick up their sleeve before they’re letting you submit this declaration.

Below are the set of questions asked to you when you attempt to declare that you don’t need a licence:

Read through these questions and see if you notice anything different about the final two. Notice that they are worded in the inverse to all the questions above. The question reads “Can you confirm that […]”. This means that, to be able to declare no licence required, you need to answer yes to these questions! It is very common in regular speech to answer questions such as this in a non-literal manor also. For instance, if I were asked in conversation “Can you confirm that you don’t smoke”, I would likely respond “No, I don’t”. A lot of people will be filling out this form and will instinctively put no as the answers to the last two questions as they would respond in conversation, leading to this:

This, like the tone and organisation of the letter, has almost certainly been done deliberately. This is a last ditch effort by the licensing bullies to scare anybody off who dared to question their authority and try to claim that they (gasp) didn’t need to pay the TV licence fee - oh my god the audacity of some people!

Once you finally navigate through the form and earn your right to not pay for something you don’t need, you are gifted this little popup:

Even now, they’re still trying to get you to buy the licence. Even after you have gone through the trouble of finding this page. Even after navigating their confusingly worded questionnaire to earn the right to submit your declaration. Even after - by their own standards automatically judged on their own website - you don’t need a licence. Even now, they still have the temerity to try to sell you the licence, now resorting to car salesman-like tactics and appealing to a fear of missing out.

Having ignored this and clicked on the second (not the first) link to open up the declaration form, an even older looking piece of flash player nostalgia pops up asking for a whole host of personal information:

They then want your property address, which I believe is how they keep track of who has a licence and who doesn’t:

Weirdly, the example postcode of “BN1 2FF” given on the form is a real postcode and maps to a block of flats in Brighton. I wonder if the inhabitants of this address were asked for permission to use their postcode as an example here?

Once you’ve handed that over as well, you have to do this sort of final declaration bit:

These questions being the same ones that they asked you a moment ago anyway, and then you’re done! Except, they “reserve the right” to pay you a visit (unannounced) to check you’re not illegally watching television at the address you just declared to not require one. Brilliant.

A few of “The Facts”

In the spirit of the very factual letter that was sent to me, I thought I’d do some rattling off of facts also.

FACT: It is not a crime to merely fail to respond to one of these letters

Not responding to one of these letters in of itself is not a crime, nor is it a crime merely to fail to possess a TV licence. The illegal combo is to be watching live playback of TV on a device whilst also having failed to obtain a TV licence. Strangely, if you aren’t watching TV, you don’t need a licence to do so! According to The Communications Act 2003 (Section 363), the only time an offence is committed is if in contravention of subsection 1, which reads “A television receiver must not be installed or used unless the installation and use of the receiver is authorised by a licence under this Part”. There is nothing in this section about failure to declare yourself as not needing a licence and no such offence exists. Really - you can read the whole law. Section 4 is not very long and is quite accessible as far as British legislation goes.

FACT: The licence inspectors require a warrant to enter your property

According to Section 366, a warrant to enter your property can be issued by a “justice of the peace” under a few conditions. First, and most importantly, the TV licence goons need to demonstrate that you are contravening the law set out in Section 363 above - I.E that you have a TV and are actively using it in a prohibited way. As you’ll see later on, it is perfectly possible and reasonable to own a television without a TV licence, provided that you are careful. Secondly, the warrant can only be issued if the TV licence thugs can demonstrate that nobody at the address is available or willing to let them in. So, essentially, they will have to have shown up already demanding to be let in. So, essentially, if they do this, you are perfectly within your right to ask them to come back with a warrant. They are then within their rights to obtain a warrant again subject to the condition of a suspected offence above.

Now, once a warrant has been issued, it is very important that you don’t obstruct the thugs as they get on with whatever they’re getting on with. Their warrant should restrict them to merely searching for and testing your television equipment, so you are well allowed to stop them from doing anything else, should they try. However, attempting to stop them entirely is actually a very serious offence under law and the fine levied is quite significantly heavier than the licence evasion fine, should you be found guilty. Just let them get on with it.

As for whether it will ever escalate to this level, on the other hand: I find it unlikely. Obtaining a warrant and fulfilling the burden of proof outlined in the warrant conditions requires arguing in front of a “justice of the peace” (which I think is probably just a magistrate), which most of the privately hired thugs the BBC outsources the investigating to won’t bother with. These companies are paid by the case, and so simply giving up and writing you off as not requiring a licence is easier than going through the warrant process and coming back with police forcing entry.

FACT: The licence inspectors are not permitted to surveil you within your own home

According to The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (Section 26), “intrusive surveillance” is defined as covert, directed surveillance “carried out in relation to anything taking place on any residential premises or in any private vehicle”. Neither Ofcom nor the BBC are listed as public bodies permitted to perform such surveillance under the act. The police, on the other hand, are permitted to perform such surveillance - provided that they get authorisation in writing from the chief constable of their force. I find it somewhat unlikely that the TV licence people are going to go this far over a suspected case of unauthorised TV watching.

FACT: Shared televisions in communal spaces are covered by the building licence

According to this astoundingly condescending document published by the BBC, a communal licence covering the whole of your building does cover you to watch TV in a communal space. It does not, however, cover you to have a television in your room.

FACT: Watching live TV on your laptop (when unplugged) is covered by your home licence

If your parents (or whoever you live with outside of term time) has a licence for your out-of-term address, you’re actually covered to watch TV with no restrictions provided that you are doing so on a device which is “powered solely by its own internal batteries” and “isn’t connected to an aerial or plugged into the mains”. So, basically, you’re allowed to watch TV on your laptop without worrying about this anyway provided that you’ve got a TV licence for your home!

This particular provision is why the comment about “most students” needing a licence annoyed me so much: the reality clearly couldn’t be further from the truth! Most people I know didn’t move into university with a desktop computer and their student flat was much too small to install a television anyway - they took with them (at most) a laptop and possibly an external screen. This means that, unless the parents of “most students” are evading the licence fare themselves, it simply cannot be the case that most students do require a licence.

Oh, and while we’re at it: a television with the sole purpose of displaying video from a computer does not require a licence.

FACT: Watching DVDs, previously recorded live TV or digital video files does not require a licence

The licence goons are very careful on their site to keep repeating the phrase “live TV”:

The reason behind this is because The Communications (Television Licensing) Regulations 2004 (Regulation 9) defines a TV reception as being “at the same time (or virtually the same time) as it is received by members of the public”. As a result, pre-recorded DVDs or video files do not require a licence to view.

On the other hand, the recording itself would require one, as this is reception “at the same time” as members of the public (that is to say “live”). There is nothing stopping you, however, from recording TV in your licensed home and taking it elsewhere to watch.

FACT: BBC Sounds can be listened to without a TV licence

Listening to digital radio (that is to say a podcast) is explicitly excluded from scope in the act mentioned above, and so the playback of BBC sounds does not require a licence, even though it is a BBC production. After all, you can listen to BBC sounds for free abroad anyway, without any kind of licence fee!

Advice for students

The opening paragraph’s claim that “most students” do require a licence is probably more than a little bit of wishful thinking on the BBC’s part.

As outlined above, the only case in which a student could possibly require a licence is if they have a television in their room which is permanently plugged in and has an aerial/digital TV box connected. If your building as a whole has a TV licence, you are not required to have your own one to use the communal television.

The TV licence isn’t cheap so if you can manage to only watch TV from your unplugged laptop while you’re away at university, that’s probably the option to go for. If your building as a whole already has a licence, you’re likely paying for it through your rent/licence to occupy anyway so don’t go buying twice when you can avoid it!

In any case, if you live in student halls or some other form of “mass” accommodation, it’s quite likely that the TV licence people have no idea who lives where and simply send these letters en mass to try and trick students into buying the licence. Your University, in holding where your term-time address lies, are acting as a data controller and so are not permitted to hand over this data without either your permission or a warrant compelling them to do so. In fact, the only way the licence thugs can really find out where you live during the term is if you hand it to them by declaring no licence required! Needless to say, I would caution against doing that.

What this letter really is

This letter and its accompanying website are nothing more than an opening gambit from the licence fee brigade to try and scare a bunch of clueless students into paying for something that they don’t need so that they can raise a bunch of money in bulk. The licence fee collection services are outsourced to a private company by the BBC - a private company who is reliant upon their contracts being renewed and upon their performance being positively evaluated by the BBC higher-ups. I don’t think it’s beyond imagination to think that this might just be an attempt by this company to simply raise a bit of cash for the BBC to put a positive spin on their annual review toward the end of the year.

The LinkedIn page for a Miss. Jackie Garswood lists her as “Customer Service Manager at Capita” - not the BBC and not Ofcom. She works for the private company which is paid by the BBC to send out threatening letters to people about their TV licence status. This merely confirms my suspicion as to what exactly is going on.

Aftermath

In any case, in response to my particular letter, my reaction was simply to ignore it. Although some freinds of mine recieved further threatening letters from them, I have yet to hear of anybody having any of the “action” which was threatened in them come to pass.

Further examples

There are examples littered across the British web of people dealing with these bullies successfully. Many reiterate what I have already said and some go further explaining how to withdraw any “implied right of access” you may have accidentally given to TV licence inspectors at any point. Well worth a read:

• This series from Martin Geddes - (2)(3)(4)
• Numerous threads on MoneySavingExpert - even more here
• These posts from Alan Marsden
• This website dedicated to the topic