Author Archives: Laurence Warner

This month you received “Your Parliamentary Briefing: standing up to the Iranian regime” in your inbox.
After a British-Iranian woman at Conference Q&As was left “looking for inspiration” as to what she could do “from here in Britain” to fight totalitarianism, Lib Dem MPs have “called on the UK government to take a stronger stance against the Iranian regime”.

Let’s instead start here in Britain.

The Online Safety Bill’s ‘spy clause’ would follow Iran in banning Encryption and by extension Signal, WhatsApp and Proton. Will you oppose?

That was my 25-word question to Ed Davey. Alas it wasn’t asked, so now I get to tell you about it in 750.

I understand Ed, Daisy & their 12 disciples supporting the Online Safety Bill: I did too.
My Fulbright scholarship in technology uncovered the harms of technology dependence, an issue I struggled with as an adolescent as I reveal in my single “Honest” this month.
So I supported in December – onstage at a Unicef conference – the UK’s landmark attempts to hold Big Tech to account for public content they promote to minors like tragic victim Molly Russell.
And I support Wera Hobhouse’s intentions to help protect women and other communities most targeted with public online hate.

But thanks to digital-rights advocates Open Rights Group, we’ve since become aware that the child-protection rhetoric has been twisted to belittle all British citizens. They want OFCOM to scan all of our digital communications.
This potent clause that will require messenger apps to use OFCOM “accredited technology to prevent individuals from encountering terrorism or CSEA content” is buried 4 levels deep (110.2.a.ii), so it’s no surprise that the only Lib Dem who seemed aware of it at my first conference was tech-specialist Lord Clement-Jones.

Though vague, the clause clearly enough intends to break Encryption for Signal – and even WhatsApp who borrow their nonprofit encryption protocol – to cry foul on government surveillance and threaten to pull from UK app stores.
Quick reality check: WhatsApp’s owned by Meta, who recently had to compensate me 300 quid for a privacy-breach. They think HMG is threatening Britons privacy.

No more WhatsApp. Nice, no more Group Chat notifications, and Matt Hancock can get back to serving his constituents.
And no more terrorism or child-abuse?
Not quite. The educated and savvy – baddies included – will still find a way of multiplying their prime numbers to encrypt sensitive comms. About bad things they’re attempting In Real Life.