The Internet Society joins the UK England Chapter in calling for a redraft of the UK’s Online Safety Bill so that it protects strong encryption and recognises its vital role in protecting users online.
Despite claims it seeks to protect users online, the recent draft of the Bill threatens to drive strong encryption from the market and place UK Internet users at greater risk than ever before.
The draft Online Safety Bill will force service providers to weaken or remove encryption to meet new content identification and removal requirements. A newly published Internet impact brief co-authored by the Internet Society and UK England Chapter identifies how, by weakening encryption, the Bill will undermine critical elements that make the Internet an open, globally connected, secure and trustworthy resource for everyone.
Encryption helps Internet users keep their online data and communications private and secure. It plays a critical role in protecting day-to-day digital activities like online banking, shopping, preventing theft of sensitive information in data breaches, and making sure private messages stay private.
Some UK policymakers have pointed to encryption backdoors as a way to use encryption while still creating a mechanism for law enforcement access to private messages. Encryption backdoors function by creating a key that government authorities can use to decrypt messages and data sent between individuals.
However, the consensus among technical experts is that there is no way to grant only certain third parties with access to users’ private communications and not others. Creating a backdoor for law enforcement access also creates an intentional vulnerability that criminals and hostile state actors can exploit. Encryption backdoors do not work and UK policymakers cannot in good faith pursue this approach without putting UK Internet users at risk of attack and abuse.
The Internet Society and UK England Chapter are calling on Her Majesty’s Government to redraft the Online Safety Bill so that it is compatible with strong encryption and abandons encryption backdoors. It is also imperative that Her Majesty’s Government conduct a full and robust Internet impact assessment so that Parliament is properly informed of the potential harms to the Internet from weakening encryption.
The best way to help Parliament to understand the dangers of weakening encryption is to make some noise about why it’s important. Please share our Internet Impact Brief widely and help others understand the impact this Bill will have. UK Internet users and businesses should continue to enjoy the full benefits of the Internet without compromising their safety. Without a significant redrafting, the Bill will deprive UK Internet users of the tools needed to protect themselves online.
Disclaimer: Viewpoints expressed in this post are those of the author and may or may not reflect official Internet Society positions.
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