by Christina Maas, Reclaim The Net:
The campaign recasts surveillance as safety, turning encryption from a shield of freedom into a checkpoint of trust.
Britain’s Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) has decided that privacy needs a chaperone.
The group has launched a campaign urging tech companies to install client-side scanning in encrypted apps, a proposal that would make every private message pass through a local checkpoint before being sent.
The IWF calls it an “upload prevention” system. Critics might call it the end of private communication disguised as a safety feature.
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Under the plan, every file or image shared on a messaging app would be checked for sexual abuse material (CSAM).
The database would be maintained by what the IWF describes as a “trusted body.” If a match is found, the upload is blocked before encryption can hide it. The pitch is that nothing leaves the device unless it’s cleared, but that is like claiming a home search is fine as long as the police do not take anything.
As has been shown in Germany, this technology would not only catch criminals. Hashing errors and false positives happen, which means lawful material could be stopped before it ever leaves a phone.
And once the scanning infrastructure is built, there is nothing stopping it from being redirected toward new categories of “harmful” or “illegal” content. The precedent would be set: your phone would no longer be a private space.
Although the IWF is running this show, it has plenty of political muscle cheering it on.
Safeguarding Minister Jess Phillips praised the IWF campaign, saying: “It is clear that the British public want greater protections for children online and we are working with technology companies so more can be done to keep children safer. The design choices of platforms cannot be an excuse for failing to respond to the most horrific crimes…If companies don’t comply with the Online Safety Act they will face enforcement from the regulator. Through our action we now have an opportunity to make the online world safer for children, and I urge all technology companies to invest in safeguards so that children’s safety comes first.”
That endorsement matters. It signals that the government is ready to use the already-controversial Online Safety Act to pressure companies into surveillance compliance.
Ofcom, armed with new regulatory powers under that Act, can make “voluntary” ideas mandatory with little more than a memo.
The UK’s approach to online regulation is becoming increasingly invasive. The government recently tried to compel Apple to install a back door into its encrypted iCloud backups under the Investigatory Powers Act. Apple refused and instead pulled its most secure backup option from British users, leaving the country with weaker privacy than nearly anywhere else in the developed world.
At the same time, police are arresting roughly 30 people every day for what are described as “offensive” communications. These cases often involve online comments or social media posts, not threats or crimes of violence. The same mindset runs through the Online Safety Act, which hands Ofcom broad powers to pressure tech companies into monitoring what people say and share in private channels.
