The Online Censorship Bill has now been passed by the House of Lords with weak promises about not breaking user security

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See article from eff.org

The U.K.’s Online Safety Bill has passed a critical final stage in the House of Lords, and envisions a potentially vast scheme to surveil internet users. The bill would empower the U.K. government, in certain situations, to demand that online platforms use government-approved software to search through all users’ photos, files, and messages, scanning for illegal content. Online services that don’t comply can be subject to extreme penalties, including criminal penalties. Such a backdoor scanning system can and will be exploited by bad actors. It will also produce false positives, leading to false accusations of child abuse that will have to be resolved. That’s why the bill is incompatible with end-to-end encryption–and human rights. EFF has strongly opposed this bill from the start. Now, with the bill on the verge of becoming U.K. law, the U.K. government has sheepishly acknowledged that it may not be able to make use of some aspects of this law. During a final debate over the bill, a representative of the government said that orders to scan user files can be issued only where technically feasible, as determined by Ofcom, the U.K.’s telecom regulatory agency. He also said any such order must be compatible with U.K. and European human rights law. That’s a notable step back, since previously the same representative, Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay, said in a letter to the House of Lords that the technology that would magically make invasive scanning co-exist with end-to-end encryption already existed . We have seen companies develop such solutions for platforms with end-to-end encryption before, wrote Lord Parkinson in that letter. Now, Parkinson has come quite close to admitting that such technology does not, in fact, exist. On Tuesday, he said : There is no intention by the Government to weaken the encryption technology used by platforms, and we have built strong safeguards into the Bill to ensure that users’ privacy is protected. If appropriate technology which meets these requirements does not exist, Ofcom cannot require its use. That is why the powers include the ability for Ofcom to require companies to make best endeavors to develop or source a new solution. The same day that these public statements were made, news outlets reported that the U.K. government privately acknowledged that there is no technology that could examine end-to-end encrypted messages while respecting user privacy. People Need Privacy, Not Weak Promises Let’s be clear: weak statements by government ministers, such as the hedging from Lord Parkinson during this week’s debate, are no substitute for real privacy rights. Nothing in the law’s text has changed. The bill gives the U.K. government the right to order message and photo-scanning, and that will harm the privacy and security of internet users worldwide. These powers, enshrined in Clause 122 of the bill, are now set to become law. After that, the regulator in charge of enforcing the law, Ofcom, will have to devise and publish a set of regulations regarding how the law will be enforced. Several companies that provide end-to-end encrypted services have said they will withdraw from the U.K. if Ofcom actually takes the extreme choice of requiring examination of currently encrypted messages. Those companies include Meta-owned WhatsApp, Signal, and U.K.-based Element, among others. While it’s the last minute, Members of Parliament still could introduce an amendment with real protections for user privacy, including an explicit protection for real end-to-end encryption. Failing that, Ofcom should publish regulations that make clear that there is no available technology that can allow for scanning of user data to co-exist with strong encryption and privacy. Finally, lawmakers in other jurisdictions, including the United States, should take heed of the embarrassing result of passing a law that is not just deceptive, but unhinged from computational reality. The U.K. government has insisted that through software magic, a system in which they can examine or scan everything will also somehow be a privacy-protecting system. Faced with the reality of this contradiction, the government has turned to an 11th hour campaign to assure people that the powers it has demanded simply won’t be used.

Elon Musk speaks of mass ID verification for all Twitter users and the UK Parliament pricks up its censorial ears and wants to hear more

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See article from techcrunch.com

Elon Musk has been giving off mixed signals about the direction of travel for his newly acquired Twitter. On one hand he seems to speak about more freedom of speech. Perhaps hinting that the pre-censorship cancel culture movement will have no truck on Twitter. On the other hand he has been speaking about authenticating all humans, possibly meaning ID verification for all users. Surely a move that will increase censorship as the authorities will then have more power to identify and punish those whose views differ from those mandated by the state.Anyway this suggestion of mass ID verification has piqued the interest of pro-censorship MPs in the UK parliament. Julian Knight, chair of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) committee, has written to Musk wishing to speak further about mass ID verification. Knight wrote: My committee has noted your proposed acquisition of Twitter and we are interested in the developments you propose. In particular, your intention to roll out verification for all users echoes our calls on the U.K. government as part of proposed legislation, which we hope will restore the U.K. public’s trust in digital platforms.

Censorship monstrosity…The UK govenment’s Online Censorship Bill will get a 2nd reading debate in the House of Commons today

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See press release from gov.uk

Repressive new censorship laws return to Parliament for their second reading this week.Online censorship legislation will be debated in the Commons Comes as new plans to support some people and fight  deemed falsities online are launched Funding boost will help people’s critical thinking online through a new expert Media Literacy Taskforce alongside proposals to pay for training for teachers and library workers Parliamentarians will debate the government’s groundbreaking Online Censorship Bill which requires social media platforms, search engines and other apps and websites allowing people to post content to censor ‘wrong think’ content. Ofcom, the official state censor, will have the power to fine companies failing to comply with the laws up to ten per cent of their annual global turnover, force them to improve their practices and block non-compliant sites. Crucially, the laws have strong measures to safeguard children from harmful content such as pornography and child sexual abuse.

Upper Class Twit of the Year…The Earl of Erroll rants about porn in parliamentary debate

Read more parl.htm at MelonFarmers.co.uk

See 2nd reading debate transcript from hansard.parliament.uk See bill status from bills.parliament.uk

The House of Lords has given a second reading to the Digital Economy Act 2017 (Commencement of Part 3) Bill [HL] which is attempting to resurrect the failed law requiring age verification for porn websites. The bill reads: Commencement of Part 3 of the Digital Economy Act 2017 The Secretary of State must make regulations under section 118(6) (commencement) of the Digital Economy Act 2017 to ensure that by 20 June 2022 all provisions under Part 3 (online pornography) of that Act have come into force. The full reasoning for law to come into force have never been published but this is most likely due to the law totally failing to address the issue of keeping porn users’ data safe from scammers, blackmailers and thieves. It also seems that the government would prefer to have general rules under which to harangue websites for not keeping children safe from harm rather than set to an expensive bunch of film censors seeking out individual transgressors. The 2nd reading debate featured the usual pro-censorship peers queing up to have a whinge about the availability of porn. And as is always the case, most of them haven’t been bothered thinking about the effectiveness of the measures, their practicality and acceptability. And of course nothing about the safety of porn users who foolishly trust their very dangerous identity data to porn websites and age verification companies. Merlin Hay, the Earl of Erroll seems to be something of a shill for those age verification companies. He chairs the Digital Policy Alliance ( dpalliance.org.uk ) which acts as a lobby group for age verifiers. He excelled himself in the debate with a few words that have been noticed by the press. He spouted: What really worries me is not just extreme pornography, which has quite rightly been mentioned, but the stuff you can access for free — what you might call the teaser stuff to get you into the sites. It normalises a couple of sexual behaviours which are not how to go about wooing a woman. Most of the stuff you see up front is about men almost attacking women. It normalises — to be absolutely precise about this, because I think people pussyfoot around it — anal sex and blowjobs. I am afraid I do not think that is how you go about starting a relationship.

Peer Floella Benjamin attempts to revive porn age verification censorship because porn viewing is just one step away from park murder

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See article from bills.parliament.uk

The pro-censorship member of the House of Lords has tabled the following amendment to the Domestic Abuse Bill to reintroduce internet porn censorship and age verification requires previously dropped by the government in October 2019.Amendment 87a introduces a new clause: Impact of online pornography on domestic abuse Within three months of the day on which this Act is passed, the Secretary of State must commission a person appointed by the Secretary of State to investigate the impact of access to online pornography by children on domestic abuse. Within three months of their appointment, the appointed person must publish a report on the investigation which may include recommendations for the Secretary of State. As part of the investigation, the appointed person must consider the extent to which the implementation of Part 3 of the Digital Economy Act 2017 (online pornography) would prevent domestic abuse, and may make recommendations to the Secretary of State accordingly. Within three months of receiving the report, the Secretary of State must publish a response to the recommendations of the appointed person. If the appointed person recommends that Part 3 of the Digital Economy Act 2017 should be commenced, the Secretary of State must appoint a day for the coming into force of that Part under section 118(6) of the Act within the timeframe recommended by the appointed person.” Member’s explanatory statement This amendment would require an investigation into any link between online pornography and domestic abuse with a view to implementing recommendations to bring into effect the age verification regime in the Digital Economy Act 2017 as a means of preventing domestic abuse.

Proposals to protect free speech in Scottish hate crimes bill do not appear to have gained traction

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See article from secularism.org.uk

The Scottish government is struggling to find  way of protecting free speech in a disgraceful blasphemy/hate crimes bill.An amendment was recently proposed to tone down the destruction of free speech The Scottish government is now seeking further suggestions. Earlier this week the Scottish parliament’s Justice Committee approved several amendments to the bill, one of which would provide greater protection for freedom of expression on religion. But these proposals seem to have stalled due to parliamentary/party resistance. Now the committee issued a call for views on four new options for freedom of expression protections, which have been proposed by the justice secretary who clearly has little interest in free speech. Only two of the options contain the agreed amendment on free speech on religion. The other two substantially dilute protection for freedom of expression on religion in comparison. The committee has requested that views on the proposals be submitted by 10:00 this coming Monday (22 February).The original amendment proposed that a conviction for stirring up hatred on religious grounds would require the prosecution to demonstrate that the accused had behaved in a manner which is threatening or abusive and intended to stir up hatred. One of the new amendments would have provided greater protection to expressions of antipathy, ridicule, dislike or insult of religion or belief. But two of the four options now proposed only say behaviour would not reach the threshold for prosecution solely on the basis that it involves or includes discussion or criticism of religion. National Secular Society chief executive Stephen Evans said the Scottish government’s position was perplexing and farcical. He commented: The level of protection for freedom of expression on religion in this bill appeared settled. The agreed amendment was a significant step in the right direction and the Scottish government shouldn’t be reopening this. This episode simply reinforces legitimate concerns that the bill will unacceptably intrude on freedom of speech. With this in mind, and amid a deeply confused and rushed process, MSPs should press pause on the relevant section of this bill.

Floella Benjamin attempts to resuscitate internet porn age verification in a Domestic Abuse Bill

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See Government statement about age verification (11th January 2021) from questions-statements.parliament.uk See attempt to resuscitate porn age verification in the Domestic Abuse Bill (10th February 2021) from hansard.parliament.uk

Campaigners for the revival of deeply flawed and one sided age verification for porn scheme have been continuing their efforts to revive it ever since it was abandoned by the Government in October 2019.The Government was asked about the possibility of restoring it in January 2021 in the House of Commons. Caroline Dinenage responded for the government: The Government announced in October 2019 that it will not commence the age verification provisions of Part 3 of the Digital Economy Act 2017 and instead deliver these protections through our wider online harms regulatory proposals. Under our online harms proposals, we expect companies to use age assurance or age verification technologies to prevent children from accessing services which pose the highest risk of harm to children, such as online pornography. The online harms regime will capture both the most visited pornography sites and pornography on social media, therefore covering the vast majority of sites where children are most likely to be exposed to pornography. Taken together we expect this to bring into scope more online pornography currently accessible to children than would have been covered by the narrower scope of the Digital Economy Act. We would encourage companies to take steps ahead of the legislation to protect children from harmful and age inappropriate content online, including online pornography. We are working closely with stakeholders across industry to establish the right conditions for the market to deliver age assurance and age verification technical solutions ahead of the legislative requirements coming into force. In addition, Regulations transposing the revised Audiovisual Media Services Directive came into force on 1 November 2020 which require UK-established video sharing platforms to take appropriate measures to protect minors from harmful content. The Regulations require that the most harmful content is subject to the strongest protections, such as age assurance or more technical measures. Ofcom, as the regulatory authority, may take robust enforcement action against video sharing platforms which do not adopt appropriate measures. Now during the passage of the Domestic Abuse in the House of Lords, Floella Benjamin attempted to revive the age verification requirement by proposing the following amendment: Insert the following new Clause — Impact of online pornography on domestic abuse (1) Within three months of the day on which this Act is passed, the Secretary of State must commission a person appointed by the Secretary of State to investigate the impact of access to online pornography by children on domestic abuse. (2) Within three months of their appointment, the appointed person must publish a report on the investigation which may include recommendations for the Secretary of State. (3) As part of the investigation, the appointed person must consider the extent to which the implementation of Part 3 of the Digital Economy Act 2017 (online pornography) would prevent domestic abuse, and may make recommendations to the Secretary of State accordingly. (4) Within three months of receiving the report, the Secretary of State must publish a response to the recommendations of the appointed person. (5) If the appointed person recommends that Part 3 of the Digital Economy Act 2017 should be commenced, the Secretary of State must appoint a day for the coming into force of that Part under section 118(6) of the Act within the timeframe recommended by the appointed person. Member’s explanatory statement This amendment would require an investigation into any link between online pornography and domestic abuse with a view to implementing recommendations to bring into effect the age verification regime in the Digital Economy Act 2017 as a means of preventing domestic abuse. Floella Benjamin made a long speech supporting the censorship measure and was supported by a number of peers. Of course they all argued only from the ‘think of the children’ side of the argument and not one of them mentioned trashed adult businesses and the risk to porn viewers of being outed, scammed, blackmailed etc. See Floella Benjamin’s speech from hansard.parliament.uk

Former culture secretary Jeremy Wright sets up parliamentary group to campaign for internet censorship

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See article from telegraph.co.uk

Former culture secretary Jeremy Wright is setting up a parliamentary group (All party parliamentary group, APPG) to campaign for internet censorshipWright, who drew up the Government’s white paper proposing strict sanctions on tech platforms who fail to protect users under a duty of care is particularly calling for censorship powers to block, ban, fine or restrict apps and websites considered undesirable by the proposed internet censor, Ofcom. Wright said: There needs to be a lot more clubs in the bag for the regulator than just fines, he said. I do think we need to consider criminal liability for individual (tech company) directors where it can be demonstrated. He also felt the regulator should have powers of ISP blocking, which effectively bar an app from the UK, in cases of companies repeatedly and egregiously refusing to comply with censorship rules.  He said: I do accept the chances of WhatsApp being turned off are remote. Although frankly, there may be circumstances where that may be the right thing to do and we shouldn’t take it off the table. Wright is founding the APPG alongside crossbench peer and children’s digital rights campaigner Beeban Kidron, and the group has already attracted supporters, including three other former culture secretaries: Baroness Nicky Morgan, Karen Bradley and Maria Miller, as well as former Health and Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt.

Age Appropriate Censorship…

The ICO’s onerous internet censorship measure starts its parliamentary approval stage.

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See statement from ico.org.uk

ICO statement in response to the Government laying the Age Appropriate Design Code, also known as the Children’s Code, before Parliament. We welcome the news that Government has laid the Age Appropriate Design Code before Parliament. It’s a huge step towards protecting children online especially given the increased reliance on online services at home during COVID-19. The code sets out 15 standards that relevant online services should meet to protect children’s privacy and is the result of wide-ranging consultation and engagement with stakeholders including the tech industry, campaigners, trade bodies and organisations. We are now pulling together our existing work on the benefits and the costs of the code to assess its impact. This will inform the discussions we have with businesses to help us develop a package of support to help them implement the code during the transition year.”

Elspeth Howe threatens a House of Lords private members bill to reactivate the recently cancelled age verification censorship scheme

But the idea failed because politicians like her didn’t give a damn about the safety of adults…

Read more uk_internet_censors.htm at MelonFarmers.co.uk

See article from theyworkforyou.com

Elspeth Howe announced her intentions in a House of Lords debate about the Queen’s Speech. She said: My Lords, I welcome the Government’s commitment to introduce its online harms Bill to improve internet safety for all, but, equally, stress that I remain deeply concerned by their failure to implement Part 3 of the Digital Economy Act. The rationale for focusing on the new Bill instead seems to be a desire to put attempts to protect children from pornographic websites on the same footing as attempts to protect them on social media platforms. It is entirely right to seek to promote safety in both contexts, but a basic error to suggest that both challenges should be addressed in the same way. The internet is complicated and one-size-fits-all policies simply will not work. The focus of what I have read about the Government’s plans for online harms revolves around social media companies and fining them if they do not do what they are supposed to do under a new legal duty of care. An article in the Times on 31 December suggested that Ofcom is going to draw up legally enforceable codes of practice that will include protecting children from accessing pornography. This approach may work for social media platforms if they have bases in the UK but it will be absolutely useless at engaging with the challenge of protecting children from pornographic websites. Initially when the Digital Economy Bill was introduced in another place, the proposal was that statutory age-verification requirements should be enforced through fines, but a cross-party group of MPs pointed out that this would never work because the top 50 pornographic websites accessed in the UK are all based in other jurisdictions. One could certainly threaten fines but it would be quite impossible to enforce them in a way that would concentrate the minds of website providers because, based in other jurisdictions, they could simply ignore them. Because of that, MPs amended the Bill to give the regulator the option of IP blocking. This would enable the regulator to tell a site based in say, Russia, that if it failed to introduce robust age-verification checks within a certain timeframe, the regulator would block it from accessing the UK market. Children would be protected either by the site being blocked after the specified timeframe or, more probably, by the site deciding that it would make more sense for it to introduce proper age-verification checks rather than risk disruption of its UK income stream. The Government readily accepted the amendment because the case for it was unanswerable. I say again that I welcome the fact that the Government want to address online safety with respect to social media platforms through their new Bill. This must not, however, be used as an excuse not to proceed with implementing Part 3 of the Digital Economy Bill, which provides the very best way of dealing with the different challenge of protecting children from pornographic websites. The failure to implement this legislation is particularly concerning because, rather than being a distant aspiration, it is all there on the statute book. The only thing standing in the way of statutory age verification with respect to pornographic websites is the Government’s delay in relaying the BBFC age-verification guidance before Parliament and setting an implementation date. Having the capacity to deal with this problem204thanks to Part 3 of the Digital Economy Act204yet not bothering to avail ourselves of it does not reflect at all well on either the Government or British society as a whole. The Government must stop procrastinating over child safety with respect to pornographic websites and get on with implementing Part 3. Mindful of that, on 21 January I will introduce my Digital Economy Act 2017 (commencement of Part 3) Bill, the simple purpose of which will be to implement Part 3 of the Digital Economy Act . I hope that that will not be necessary and that the Minister will today confirm that, notwithstanding the new online safety Bill, the Government will now press ahead with implementation themselves. I very much look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say.