The U.K. Parliament is close to passing the Online Safety Bill, which threatens global privacy by allowing backdoors into messaging services, compromising end-to-end encryption. Despite objections, no amendments were accepted. The bill also includes content filtering and surveillance measures. There’s still a chance for lawmakers to protect privacy with an amendment preserving encryption. A recent survey shows the majority of U.K. citizens want strong privacy on messaging apps.

    • sub_o@beehaw.org
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      1 year ago

      Indeed, Prince Andrew is still roaming around Pizza Express in Woking.

      I’m expecting this weakening of encryption / surveillance is to protect rich people by preemptively punishing dissidents who are organizing against them. It’s the step that authoritarian countries like China, Saudi, etc have been using against their own people, either with sweeping regulations, or just straight up buying pegasus spyware.

    • SpunkyBarnes@geddit.social
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      1 year ago

      Actually, politicians give up public privacy under the fiction of helping children, repeatedly.

      I cringe every time “online” and “children” are uttered in the same breath.

      • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech
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        1 year ago

        Which really sucks because us in tech know there’s more that we could be doing for sure, but politicians/big tech would rather grandstand with these BS policies that get the masses to agree, while giving up freedom, and not actually solving any problems.