Privacy

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[EFF] Today The UK Parliament Undermined The Privacy, Security, And Freedom Of All Internet Users (www.eff.org)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Summary

The UK Parliament has passed the Online Safety Bill (OSB), claiming it will enhance online safety but actually leading to increased censorship and surveillance. The bill grants the government the authority to compel tech companies to scan all user data, including encrypted messages, to detect child abuse content, effectively creating a backdoor. This jeopardizes privacy and security for everyone. The bill also mandates the removal of content deemed inappropriate for children, potentially resulting in politicized censorship decisions. Age-verification systems may infringe on anonymity and free speech. The implications of how these powers will be used are a cause for concern, with the possibility that encrypted services may withdraw from the UK if their users' security is compromised.

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[–] [email protected] 83 points 1 year ago (17 children)

They won't need to. Signal, WhatsApp, Session and iMessage (Apple) have already said they'll withdraw their products from the UK market. Meta are making similar noises regarding Facebook Messenger.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 year ago (14 children)

Not if all of 5 eyes rush through similar legislation in the next year. Then big tech will cave.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (9 children)

The current state of the legislation is this: the gvmt started out by saying "you must do this", then when it finally sunk in that it wasn't technically possible right now, they then said "OK, we get its not possible right now. As soon as it is, you must do this."

Some people have said 'no problem, its never going to be possible to break encryption'. This is not accurate. When quantum processing becomes a reality, which is realistically not too far away now, encryption will be trivial to crack. That's the point the rest of the world need to worry because you're right, every other gvmt in the world will follow the UK's lead.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

Signal is already making some progress on building protections against the use of quantum computers to break its encryption https://signal.org/blog/pqxdh/

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