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The Online Safety Bill contemplates bypassing encryption using device-side scanning to protect children from harmful material, and coincidentally breaking the security of end-to-end encryption at the same time. It’s currently being considered in Parliament and has been the subject of controversy for months.
[ something something saving children – that’s always a bad sign when they trot that one out ]
The legislation contains what critics have called “a spy clause.” [PDF] It requires companies to remove child sexual exploitation and abuse (CSEA) material or terrorist content from online platforms “whether communicated publicly or privately.” As applied to encrypted messaging, that means either encryption must be removed to allow content scanning or scanning must occur prior to encryption.
Signal draws the line
Such schemes have been condemned by technical experts and Signal is similarly unenthusiastic.
“Signal is a nonprofit whose sole mission is to provide a truly private means of digital communication to anyone, anywhere in the world,” said Meredith Whittaker, president of the Signal Foundation, in a statement provided to The Register.
“Many millions of people globally rely on us to provide a safe and secure messaging service to conduct journalism, express dissent, voice intimate or vulnerable thoughts, and otherwise speak to those they want to be heard by without surveillance from tech corporations and governments.”
“We have never, and will never, break our commitment to the people who use and trust Signal. And this means that we would absolutely choose to cease operating in a given region if the alternative meant undermining our privacy commitments to those who rely on us.”
Asked whether she was concerned that Signal could be banned under the Online Safety rules, Whittaker told The Register, “We were responding to a hypothetical, and we’re not going to speculate on probabilities. The language in the bill as it stands is deeply troubling, particularly the mandate for proactive surveillance of all images and texts. If we were given a choice between kneecapping our privacy guarantees by implementing such mass surveillance, or ceasing operations in the UK, we would cease operations.”
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“If Signal withdraws its services from the UK, it will particularly harm journalists, campaigners and activists who rely on end-to-end encryption to communicate safely.”
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Source: Signal says it will shut down in UK over Online Safety Bill
Robin Edgar
Organisational Structures | Technology and Science | Military, IT and Lifestyle consultancy | Social, Broadcast & Cross Media | Flying aircraft