The BBC is currently funded by a TV licence, an annual fee mandated by the Government/Treasury. As of now, if you watch broadcast TV live, be it BBC or a commercial alternative, you require a TV licence. There's been a loophole that permits catch-up watching via iPlayer, the BBC's own on-demand brand, without a valid TV licence.

When TV signals were analogue, detector vans would apparently drive around and be able to check if a household was watching TV without a licence. The digital switchover effectively rendered these trucks useless. Anecdotally, a large majority of British households have a TV licence, it's considered by many as a utility bill.

There's a sort of precedent with the TV detector vans, I guess, and this is just a modern remix. I'm horrified, personally, and I'm figuring out what to do next. The cynic in me is wondering whether this news was quietly released around the launch of the Olympics so it could be buried. I don't know. I do know as a network installer I'll have to gen-up on the specifics of wireshark et al because I'm going to get calls.

On a personal note, I moved to a semi-rural location in 2012 and cancelled my TV licence (I don't want TV, nor iPlayer). I heard horror stories from family and friends about how the TV licence folks would plague me with calls, letters, intrusive visits, etc. Sum total so far is a letter each year on the anniversary of me moving in asking if I'm still sure I don't need a licence. I don't, and I tell them via their website, and that's it.