It’s King’s Speech week, with Parliament set to discuss the government’s new legislative agenda. For those watching closely, here are Big Brother Watch’s key things to look out for in the debate:
1. Facial Recognition – Lights, Camera, we need Action
After a decade of police forces experimenting on the public with facial recognition technologies, the Home Office has committed to introducing a legislative framework to regulate their use.
Big Brother Watch is calling for a restrictive by default legislation, which only allows the police to use facial recognition in strictly-defined, exceptional circumstances, rather than for everyday policing. If facial recognition becomes a feature of daily life, it will have a devastating effect on privacy, free speech and freedom of assembly.
Live facial recognition technology, which takes a biometric scan of every person’s face as they walk by the camera has already been largely prohibited across the EU. Its use undermines the presumption of innocence by treating individuals who are not suspected of any wrongdoing as potential suspects, subjecting them to intrusive identity checks.
Given that the Home Office have already announced their intention to “ramp-up facial recognition” in every town, city and village, the outlook is grim. But we have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to protect the UK from authoritarian mass surveillance.
We hope parliamentarians will support our recommendations.
2. Social Media Ban – Children’s Well Being and Schools Bill redux
The Bill may have passed, but the question of a ban remains. We expect secondary legislation within months, a rush to act that seemingly ignores growing evidence that the proposals at hand do not work.
Big Brother Watch strenuously opposes an Australia style ban, which is de facto mandatory digital ID by the backdoor.
The sale of 500,000 UK citizens’ biometrics on a Chinese website, has understandably shaken public confidence in data security. Age-gating which could require the mass storage of children’s data is a honey pot to hackers and a risk to us all.
Even if it were plausible that the data would be safe (it isn’t), the technological reality of any age-gating means unprecedented mass surveillance of us all, not just kids. Good intentions become a snoopers charter for future governments to clamp down on those they do not want speaking.
More must be done to protect young people, but real solutions lie in regulating the harmful practices of tech giants, promoting existing parental tools, and teaching kids digital literacy. You can help make this case via the public consultation.
We hope Parliamentarians will speak up for civil liberties and push the Government to change course.
3. Protest rights under attack
With the passing of the Crime and Policing Bill, the government has given itself some of the most draconian powers to suppress peaceful protests in modern history.
Besides restricting demonstrations around places of worship and imposing a ban on face coverings at protests, the Bill also gives the police the power to shut down protests where they are considered to cause ‘cumulative disruption’. What all these new powers have in common is that they recast protest activity as an easily revocable privilege, rather than a fundamental right that allows ordinary people to hold the authorities to account.
Recent, deplorable, antisemitic attacks at Golder’s Green have led to calls from high profile figures including Met Police Chief Sir Mark Rowley and Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer to restrict or entirely pause protests relating to Palestine. But clamping down on the right to free speech will do nothing to keep the Jewish community safe – it will only lead to the gradual erosion of our democracy.
We will be talking to parliamentarians to remind them that it is precisely at times like this that defending freedom of speech is even more important.
4. ########## (Encryption)
As of last week, Meta has disabled the option for users to enable end-to-end encryption on Instagram DMs. This will allow Meta to read all messages sent by all users, including children.
Instagram generates significant amounts of advertising revenue for Meta, and it is therefore highly likely that Meta will use their new access to all users’ messages for the purposes of targeted advertising.
Encryption is one of the easiest tools by which users can keep their messages and privacy safe online. By removing the option for users to encrypt their conversations, Meta has clearly indicated that revenue is a higher priority to them than user safety.
Large tech companies like Meta set the standard for the industry, and their choice to move away from user privacy protections therefore likely signals that other platforms will follow suit.
We will be keeping a close watch to see if the Government’s plans include protections for users.