Lord Avebury (blog, bio) has tabled a written question in the United Kingdom House of Lords yesterday, which reads as under:
Lord Avebury to ask Her Majesty’s Government whether, in the light of the recent announcement by Microsoft that Internet Explorer was used to carry out the cyber attacks which prompted Google to say it will withdraw from China, they will review the use of Internet Explorer throughout the public sector. HL1505
Source: House of Lords Business (26 January 2010) and Eric Avebury: Internet vulernability
Lord Avebury mentions that the Parliamentary IT authorities are actively discouraging the use of alternative browsers such as Chrome so it is great to see that he is holding the government accountable for their policies.
According to UK parliamentary procedure, the government is obliged to provide a written response to his question on or before 8 February 2010. I think it will be interesting to see what they have to say.
Lord Avebury is an active campaigner for the rights of ethnic minorities in the UK and also those who are British nationals living abroad. He is also a member of the EU Select Committee which considers EU policy on protecting Europe from large-scale cyber attacks.
The French parliament runs Linux, thankfully, so they don’t have IE problems.