UK’s Online Safety Bill was passed in the House of Parliament and is now ready to receive royal assent. After that, the bill will become law and enforceable across the UK.
The Online Safety Bill aims to introduce stringent measures on large social media platforms, such as age restrictions that prevent children from viewing harmful content. The bill also gives more control to parents as they can report issues online. It empowers the Office of Communications (Ofcom) to oversee and enforce the bill’s provisions.
The Online Safety Bill imposes a penalty amounting to up to 10 per cent of the company’s annual revenue globally, which is a significant number.
However, the industry is not pleased with the bill as it raises concerns about the age verification process and puts online encrypted messaging services like WhatsApp at risk of breaking up their encryption services to regulators. This defeats the very purpose of encryption.
“The fact remains that scanning everyone’s messages would destroy privacy as we know it. That was as true last year as it is today,” tweeted WhatsApp head Will Cathcart in response to the bill.
While WhatsApp has already signalled to move out of the UK once the bill becomes a law, other platforms like Signal are applying a more cautious approach.
“While it’s not everything we wanted, we are more optimistic than we were when we began engaging with the UK government. It matters that the government came out publicly, clearly acknowledging that there is no technology that can safely and privately scan everyone’s communications,” Meredith Whittaker, Signal president told The Verge.
WhatsApp and Signal earlier protested against the bill, prompting the government to consider their requests, with Lord Parkinson announcing that “a notice can only be issued where technically feasible and where technology has been accredited as meeting minimum standards of accuracy in detecting only child sexual abuse and exploitation content.”
He also confirmed that “if the appropriate technology doesn’t meet these requirements, then Ofcom will not be able to use clause 122 to require its use.”
However, the government still stood firm on the bill’s wording, which means that Ofcom still can issue notice to the platforms.
The social media platforms have been the preferred platforms for child abusers. In June, Amazon was fined $25 million for failing to protect children’s privacy.
The Online Safety Bill will set a precedent for other governments to draft their own bills on similar lines, which can be dangerous for encrypted platforms.
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