It doesn't apply to audio of course, but watching BBC video content now requires you to be a licence payer doesn't it? So they need to know who you are. I guess they just extended the system to all content for simplicity.
The database for the BBC website logins and the database for people who have a license fee aren't connected, and couldn't be under the Data Protection Act.
The BBC login doesn't check if the information is valid, or if you have a license, it's literally just for user tracking for data.
Watching tv without a licence is a crime and DPA includes exceptions for the detection or prevention of crime.
Which bit of DPA do you think prevents them linking these databases?
The BBC can absolutely take an individual login to iPlayer that they think is suspicious, and have TV licensing determine if that address has a license.
But it is objectively true that you can type in any old nonsense into a BBC account registration and it does not validate it against the License Fee database - that's because moving to a general system of checking is not what that database would be collected for, and would probably not be found to be a proportionate or non-general monitoring and therefore cannot use that exemption.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/aboutthebbc/entries/77bdafd0-20b...
We don't have radio licenses any more. You don't need a TV license to listen to radio.
> I guess they just extended the system to all content for simplicity.
The 'iPlayer' app (web and native) is entirely different to the 'iPlayer Radio' and 'Sounds' apps. It's not simple to add auth to apps totally unrelated to TV.
If they said "our technology platform is cheaper if we track every user's activity and prevent anyone from accessing it without authentication" then at least that would be honest. I think it would raise some very legitimate questions, though.
FWIW I don't think this is the case. You can access BBC Sounds fine from other parts of the world, just with ads inserted. If they can geolocate non-UK listeners to substitute auth for ads, they can geolocate UK listeners without auth or ads.
I don't mind paying the TV license fee as the content is excellent, but I browse the website and download what I want to watch with youdube-dl, because I categorically reject their creepy tracking, which they refuse to properly explain. If youtube-dl stops working, I'll keep paying the licence to support the programming, but will look for torrents of the shows to download instead.