UK passes controversial encryption law Online Safety Bill

The British Parliament has voted by a majority in favor of the Online Safety Bill. That controversial law includes a series of controversial measures aimed at protecting children online, including undermining end-to-end encryption. The law received a lot of criticism.

The British House of Commons agrees with the bill, which will soon become law. Minister of Technology Michelle Donelan says she is proud of the law, which she says has a zero tolerance policy on child protection. The law is enforced by Ofcomthe British communications regulator.

The Online Safety Bill consists of a package of measures that are mainly aimed at internet and social media companies. For example, those companies must do more to verify users’ ages and ‘take measures so that children do not come into contact with harmful content’. More importantly, companies must immediately remove ‘illegal content’ and take strong action to prevent it from appearing on their platforms in the first place. Companies must also build filters against harmful content that parents can set for their children. If the law is violated, the regulator can impose fines of up to ten percent of a company’s global annual turnover.

The law has come under fire several times in the past year. One of the biggest pain points was a specific requirement to also scan encrypted content for harmful content such as child abuse material. Experts have said for years that end-to-end encryption cannot be undermined in this way. Several companies, including Apple and Facebook, threatened to withdraw their chat apps from the UK if the law was passed. In later revisions of the law it has been somewhat weakened. It recently emerged that the law will not be enforced as long as there are no tools to read e2e chats.