{"id":45156,"date":"2022-08-05T05:50:00","date_gmt":"2022-08-05T05:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cloudnewshub.com\/archives\/45156"},"modified":"2022-08-05T05:50:00","modified_gmt":"2022-08-05T05:50:00","slug":"the-dangers-of-the-uks-illogical-war-on-encryption","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cloudnewshub.com\/?p=45156","title":{"rendered":"The dangers of the UK\u2019s illogical war on encryption"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In a 21st century war, what happens online impacts events on the ground. Reliable, secure communication channels in Ukraine have delivered crucial information from President Zelenskyy directly to the people<\/a>, and allowed him to broadcast appeals to the world and recruit international support<\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n

Secure communication has empowered Ukrainians to combat disinformation, organise relief efforts, and protect evacuees. It has undoubtedly saved lives and guided Ukrainians to safety. <\/span><\/p>\n

As Western countries support the Ukrainians with defensive and humanitarian aid, they must also defend Ukrainian citizens\u2019 ability to communicate safely. <\/span><\/p>\n

In the UK parliament, Nadine Dorries, secretary of state for digital, culture, media and sport<\/a>, recently noted: \u201cWhatsApp [a secure messaging app] has launched an end-to-end encryption service that the Ukrainian people can access to find out what is happening in their location on a minute-by-minute, real- time basis and where they can get emergency support and help.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

When people have no option but to entrust their communication to third-party services, some of which may be actively hostile, end-to-end encryption provides the highest level of security, because only the sender and receiver have the key to the messages. Just imagine their plight if that encrypted service was designed to facilitate third-party access. <\/span><\/p>\n

Astonishingly, even as the UK government praises end-to-end encryption abroad, it is undermining it at home. The Online Safety Bill, which continues to proceed through parliament after being mentioned in the Queen\u2019s Speech, will target platforms that use end-to-end encryption by \u201cplacing a duty of care on service providers<\/a> within the scope of the draft bill to moderate illegal and harmful content on their platforms, with fines and penalties for those that fail to uphold this duty\u201d. <\/span><\/p>\n

To comply, providers offering end-to-end encrypted services would be forced to weaken, bypass or even remove encryption, putting the security and privacy of their users at risk. <\/span><\/p>\n

Then, imagine someone still in Ukraine is trying to contact family members who have made it to the UK. Or a UK citizen is working with the aid agencies on the ground. Is their messaging app allowed to have secure communication in Ukraine, but only compromised encryption \u2013 or none at all \u2013 in the UK? It\u2019s a recipe for chaos. <\/span><\/p>\n

Encrypted communication needs to be secure, no matter where you are. We cannot let the UK be the weak link in that chain.<\/span><\/p>\n

The same end-to-end encrypted services are critical for journalists, who depend on them to keep information channels open despite government censorship. When the BBC\u2019s Russian website was blocked, the broadcaster used encryption to circumvent some of the restrictions and continue publishing through alternative channels<\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n

Supporters of the Online Safety Bill will doubtless point out that journalistic content is exempt, which is, frankly, irrelevant. Individual citizens should be able to send evidence of war crimes, confidentially and securely. The act of sending it should not put their own safety at risk; nor should platforms and intermediaries be reluctant to convey the evidence on the basis that it might be \u201coffensive\u201d or \u201cdisturbing\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s as if the government either hasn\u2019t considered the cross-border implications of its anti-encryption policy or isn\u2019t worried about the \u201crace to the bottom\u201d it would create. <\/span><\/p>\n

At a time when Ukraine needs us to step up, the UK government is instead on the brink of undermining end-to-end encryption with the Online Safety Bill. We are seeing, under the most tragic circumstances, how dangerous it is when a country\u2019s citizens cannot communicate securely and cannot access reliable information safely. <\/span><\/p>\n

It may be true that, as the saying goes, \u201cthe first casualty of war is the truth\u201d \u2013 but that\u2019s no reason to help it die.<\/span><\/p>\n

Robin Wilton is director of internet trust at the Internet Society<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a 21st century war, what happens online impacts events on the ground. Reliable, secure communication channels in Ukraine have delivered crucial information from President Zelenskyy directly to the people, and allowed him to broadcast appeals to the world and recruit international support. Secure communication has empowered Ukrainians to combat disinformation, organise relief efforts, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":45157,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[533],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-it"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cloudnewshub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cloudnewshub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cloudnewshub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cloudnewshub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cloudnewshub.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45156"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cloudnewshub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45156\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cloudnewshub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/45157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cloudnewshub.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cloudnewshub.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cloudnewshub.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}