The government plans to coerce Big Tech to enforce authoritarian ID checks on the premise of children’s online safety.
Silkie Carlo, the director of Big Brother Watch, said the plans could “invoke the death of anonymity and internet privacy… This will only result in population-wide ID checks for all of us to use our phones, tablets and laptops.
She continued, “This will only result in population-wide ID checks for all of us to use our phones, tablets and laptops. These plans would replace efforts for meaningful tech and parental responsibility with performative, authoritarian government control that children can easily circumvent by accessing adult-registered devices.
“Planned restrictions on messaging, streaming and browsing raise the potential of spyware in our pockets that will be exploited for other purposes before long.
“The government mandating that all phones in Britain require ID and surveillance software is a crossing of the Rubicon that would make the UK one of the most authoritarian internet regimes in the world. This extreme technological censorship requires rigorous public and parliamentary scrutiny that is currently totally missing.”
The Times – Tech bosses threatened with prison if they fail to protect children