The U.K. Parliament is pushing ahead with a sprawling internet regulation bill that will, among other things, undermine the privacy of people around the world. The Online Safety Bill, now at the final stage before passage in the House of Lords, gives the British government the ability to force backdoors into messaging services, which will destroy end-to-end encryption. No amendments have been accepted that would mitigate the bill’s most dangerous elements. If it passes, the Online Safety Bill will be a huge step backwards for global privacy, and democracy itself.
  • leviosa@programming.dev
    2·
    1 year ago

    Unfortunately the mission to regain control of information flow is a top-down policy and the UK government is just swimming in the direction everybody is being steered to. There are several countries all implementing their own versions of this, for example India recently banning some e2ee apps. Also the EU has approved a law which requires that companies be able to scan content of user messages.

    I don’t know any specifics about the laws being considered in North America, or what’s happening in South America, Africa or the rest of Asia at all, but I’d imagine any banned list would be pretty long by the time the dust settles. In the meantime it’ll be more than a little cringe worthy watching the politicians in different countries trying to take credit for the trickle down policies they sell.

    Perhaps a technical solution could be apps with backdoored encryption exposing an interface for other apps to pass and receive encrypted messages. Dividing themselves in two even. A custom text editor isn’t a messaging app.