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The UK government insists that this needn’t be so, but it is a technological reality. The problem is that end-to-end encryption and backdoors are mutually exclusive.

Ofcom’s weapons include fines up to £18 million ($22 million) or 10% of global revenue (GDPR’s maximum is 4% of global revenue), blocking the platform, and even criminal liability for senior managers. In short, the Online Safety Bill will require messaging app providers to implement some form of backdoor into the encrypted data – although the government asserts this isn’t a ban on E2E encryption itself. That, in simple terms, implies mass government surveillance of any internet available to users within the UK.īut what if the information on the platform is protected with end-to-end encryption within a messaging or communications application? That doesn’t matter it is still subject to the law, and Ofcom must be provided access to the cleartext content. To be able to determine compliance with the law, Ofcom must have visibility on the content. Enforcement is to be undertaken by the government’s own Office of Communications regulator, Ofcom. If content is deemed harmful (child pornography, terrorist recruitment, revenge porn, bullying, self-harm, and anything the government defines as ‘illegal’), the provider can be required to remove that content.Īll of this sounds reasonable but the problems start with visibility and enforcement. The primary gist of the bill is that platform providers are responsible for the content available on their platforms, irrespective of who generates the content. While this would be a UK law, its reach expands to any internet platform providing services to people in the UK. It is likely (not certain) that it will become law. Both are justified on national security (terrorism) and protection of children requirements (child pornography).Īt the time of writing, this bill ( PDF) has passed through the House of Commons, and is currently at committee stage in the House of Lords.

The latter is just a byproduct of enforcing the former. The Online Safety Bill is the enactment of two long held UK government desires: the removal of harmful internet content, and visibility into end-to-end (E2E) content.