Failure to Include

Piccadilly Circus, London. Keir Starmer now demands state spyware on every mobile device, always watching the screen, scanning everything, looking for things the government disapproves of.

What do you do when you get banned on British TV?

The UK government spyware demand means that the government decides exactly what should be censored on every mobile device. They say they will start with nude pictures (if you don’t identify yourself as an adult). But it could at any time be expanded to anything the government disapproves of. Today, 30 people are arrested every day in the United Kingdom for writing something online that the government classifies as "grossly offensive". It is obvious that they will use this tool to restrict free speech. Currently, there appears to be no requirement to report findings outside the device. However, with both legal and technological decision-making power taken away from individuals and transferred to the government, that is only a pen stroke away. This means that the government could also use this system for total mass surveillance. And they can do so in secret. The government recently, in secret, tried to pressure Apple (which is now agreeing to client-side scanning) to build backdoors into its end-to-end encrypted cloud service. They can do this under the Investigatory Powers Act 2016, also known as the "Snoopers' Charter" – a law that makes it illegal for tech companies to disclose secret demands from the government.

This is what the UK spyware proposal means. There must be government spyware on every mobile device. It shall watch everything that happens, including always watching the screen, looking for things the government disapproves of. When anything is flagged by the software as something the government doesn't like, the software must block it from being sent or displayed (in realtime). The user of the device must not be able to shut this watching and blocking off. The only way to shut it off would be to ask the government or its proxies to do so for you, at their discretion. Therefore the whole device must be locked down. Administrator rights and the decision of what software or operating system to run or not to run must be taken from the owner/user and handed to the government and its proxies. Apple and Google are themselves working hard to lock down the devices they are involved in to shut out competition and establish a duopoly. The UK government says it is "working closely" with Apple and Google and currently they synchronise and coordinate their communication on this subject. The UK government is now proposing to mandate what would otherwise be illegal anti-competitive practices. @GrapheneOS on the Apple and Google duopoly: nitter.gq/GrapheneOS/status/2053… Statement from @signalapp nitter.gq/signalapp/status/20640… @ReclaimTheNetHQ on the state spyware: reclaimthenet.org/starmer-ca… The government announcement: gov.uk/government/news/new-p…