Signal says UK plan to scan devices for nude images 'endangers us all' Signal insists that plans to compel tech companies to scan devices for nude images of children announced by UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Monday at London Tech Week "will not keep children safe." "It endangers us all," the encrypted messaging platform said, adding that the mechanism required to implement it would be " …
I've said it once and I say it again: you don't install your policing on my personal device.
It amounts to a constant, warrantless police search of my personal stuff.
To search me, una tantum, you need to convince a fsck'ing judge that it is necessary to a very specific end --you cannot weasel your way around it with a "think of the children" kind of law, not in any place of the world which aspires to be just and free. This is the kind of thing that China does.
Based on the size, ubiquitousness and historical track record of our intelligence agencies I don't have a lot of confidence that they're keeping us safe. I think their most probable function is to keep themselves in a job, to sustain the fantasy world that they live in that provides them a reason for being. As for 'Nork' being interested in the UK I'd guess that the only reason would be a case study on how not to maintain a nation state, "Follow this path if you want to go from owning the world to relatively insignificant inside a handful of generations", that sort of thing.
(The other thing worth studying is how the British people somehow keep things together and moving despite their government. This miasma of crisis and incompetence isn't peculiar to now -- go back decades, even centuries, and you'll see the same structures and patterns. Occasionally things break loose and there are glimpses of a bright future but 'the money' clamps that lid down firmly again.)
Personal experience tells me you're very wrong in your assertion the security services don't keep us safe.
They sometimes get it spectacularly wrong, but, the majority of the time, they do a great job.
Personal experience also tells me that if there's a chance to make their jobs easier with a little extra judicial over reach then they'll also do that and not care one bit about rights, privacy etc etc.
Well we don't know that for sure. We hear about some of the times they get it spectacularly wrong, when it's leaked, or exposed by a non secret adjacent event that makes it clear there was something going on behind the scenes. But the "we don't discuss intelligence matters" response is like the "we don't comment on special forces" responses and only confirms that they are somewhat involved.
If they are doing their job well, the majority of the time we shouldn't know anything at all, unfortunately that's usually the same as when they aren't doing a good job by stepping over the line.
In any country, if any security services are hiding details about their operations completely, then the only explanation is that they are not doing their job and not providing any security - rather doing the opposite.
If security services are really "catching terrorists" and "stopping criminals", there is no reason to withhold details about operations after the fact, for example all the plots that were foiled.
Could it be that almost no plots have ever been foiled (mainly freedoms and privacy of the citizens trampled), thus there is almost never anything good to report and the few plots that are foiled, are foiled with basic policing that didn't include tramping over freedoms and privacy without a warrant?
"If security services are really "catching terrorists" and "stopping criminals", there is no reason to withhold details about operations after the fact,..."
Apart perhaps, from not wanting to alert other terrorists and criminals that they are targetting them, and not wanting to give any indication of how they are being targetted and caught.
I think a lot of people don't really comprehend the extent to which secrecy is embedded in the training and subsequent actions of those tasked with working behind the scenes against such criminals. Careless talk costs lives, as the saying used to go.
Added to which, there have been regular occassions where these agencies have publicised successful operations against such criminals, but it would be very surprising if they were to disclose everything all the time.
Obviously, if an operation is still ongoing, then it may be justified to withhold details until the operation is concluded.
If criminals are constantly being caught and that's being reported, then clearly many criminals would realize that it's only a matter of time until they get caught, which would encourage them to stop being criminals.
Reporting that a criminal was caught via basic police work isn't going to give other criminals anything useful.
The "Careless talk costs lives" idiom was a propaganda campaign to frighten people from spreading rumors - it is not grounded in reality.
If training needs to be kept secret after the fact to be effective, then what is being trained has a critical weakness, that will be exploited by any criminals who work out the secret.
After all, secrets can only be kept secret for a short term - thus while a short term secret may be effective and be kept (i.e. tomorrow, go on the operation at x place to sting the criminals - which the day after tomorrow could be publicly announced without comprising the completed operation), a long term secret will not be.
Considering the resources and funding they get, such agencies rarely publish reports of successful operations against criminals.
My sister in law sent me a picture of my nephews (all under 10 at the time) all in the bath at bathtime. I would I presume be stitched up like a kipper if this idiotic idea becomes a reality. That reminds me of Julia Somerville ( https://www.independent.co.uk/news/julia-somerville-defends-innocent-family-photos-1538516.html) who sent a roll of film to be developed and on it was a picture of her daughter in the bath. A totally innocent picture of her daughter on a roll of family photographs which an employee at the Boots she took the film to, reported to the police. Her partner was arrested when he went to pick up the film and she was also subsequently arrested although both were eventually released without charge.
A dumbphone is looking more and more attractive every day.
Such laws tend to be retroactive and a record of everything now tends to be kept - good luck.
Unfortunately, "dumbphones" no longer exist.
No LTE chipsets are produced without the capability to receive SMS's (could contain a link to an image) or MMS's (a HTTP link to an image pretty much), nor does most "phone number providers" offer subscriptions without SMS and MMS support.
Most "dumbphones" run Android, so even if the device hides SMS functionality, SMS's and MMS's would still be received and therefore likely scanned - with the possible result of you being arrested for something you aren't aware of and have not viewed.
If you jump through enough hoops, there are SIP trunking services that support phone calls only, that you can interface with, with only free software, that avoids such problems completely (you generally can't send SMS's to phone numbers, or it is possible to have a mobile number, but only support receiving calls and SMS's, but not MMS's - which won't send at all).
There’s Nokias such as the Nokia 105 4G that are still a feature phone (no camera) and not Android which you can buy. If you don’t want to get sms/mms on it just change or delete the service centre details on the phone and you will not get an SMS/MMS same with the APN for data.
"Most "dumbphones" run Android, so even if the device hides SMS functionality, SMS's and MMS's would still be received and therefore likely scanned - with the possible result of you being arrested for something you aren't aware of and have not viewed."
MMS messages are not sent to the recipient device, they are sent to the MMSC run by the OpCo which then sends a WAP Push (typically over SMS) to the recipient device which then automatically *pulls* the URL for the content from the MMSC.
If you have disabled Mobile Data on the phone then it should be unable to retrieve any MMSes at all (though an Android setting "MMS Messages, Send and receive when mobile data is off." appears to contradict this).
Also even with Mobile Data enabled my Android phone has a switchable setting "Auto-retrieve, Automatically retrieve MMS messages" for MMS (as well as "Roaming auto-retrieve") to control things.
JimboSmith said: "If you don't want to get sms/mms on it just change or delete the service centre details on the phone"
This will prevent the ability to *send* SMSes from the phone, however I don't believe it prevents the *reception* of SMSes.
You just described how MMS messages are sent to the device - such typically consists of a HTTP link to an image and possessing a link to an illegal image can be deemed the same as having a copy of the illegal image.
When it comes to "dumbphones" running Android, editing more than basic settings is typically restricted - there may be a mobile data setting - but I doubt there would be the option to disable automatic MMS message retrieval.
With LTE, it is impossible to actually disable mobile data - network packets need to be routed to receive calls and messages - a configuration where routing of packets directly to the internet is blackholed, but in-network MMS DNS and packet routing isn't is entirely possible.
China doesn't do that specific thing because it doesn't feel that it needs to. In China the government controls the internet at the traffic level and the app/service level. The reason why Western governments are considering this type of on-device spyware at all is because requiring all messages to be decrypted on the server (basically banning end to end encryption) would be too brazen.
As for the hermit kingdom, what you're saying is simply just false. Forget automatic scans. Smartphones smuggled out of the country have been analyzed and were found to contain code that allows party officials to covertly take a screenshot at any time they like.
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If the device runs proprietary malware, it's not yours - considering that proprietary malware that is implemented where networking capability is available, almost always has spyware too.
Even if it doesn't yet, an arbitrary remote update functionality means that there is the capability to push it out in the future.
The only effective solution to the problem is to ensure that devices are yours, by only running free software on them (a free BIOS or a free bootloader is also needed to be sure).
For tracking devices, the whole thing is backdoored, so the only solution is to get rid of it and replace it with a real computer.
This nonsense is as much about deflecting attention away from the leadership shenanigans in the UK Parliament as anything else.
Default for political parties to start "think of the children" BS when they want you to focus on something else.
I don't think for a minute this idea from UK Gov is based on any sensible research, just the latest soundbite to get spread over the UK press to divert attention from actual issues back in old blighty!!
You know, the ones that actually impact the population....... No? Okay, must be nudes on my device that are driving costs up then yes?
Described in 1988 as the The four horsemen of the infocalypse
Whatever happened to parental responsibility and nurture? Teaching them right and wrong. Oh, I forgot, this is the society where kids are going into primary school without being potty trained!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-dorset-40599675
so no chance these "parents" have had other conversations with their offspring/spent any quality time with them
Wait what?
Doesn't that generally take a few weeks at most (or can be rushed in a few days, if a parent is sensibly lazy and wants to end the expense and bother of nappies)?
Doing an internet search, even for severely slow children, it's reported to take 9 months at most?
What are they doing if they haven't done something as basic as showing a 3+ year old, let along a 7+ or 11+ year old how to use a toilet?
Also, you would think even a hopelessly useless parent should know that their child needs development help if they haven't worked it out themselves at 10 years old?
Those of you who think that Zombie Starmer's campaign to ban nudity in the UK cannot be implemented, should know that his office have supplied details to the tech industry of how it can be done: Software asks a file if it contains nudity, the file fesses up, and is deleted. That sort of genius is why politicians run our countries, not tech folk.
All acts of censorship offer lucrative commercial opportunities. For example, doorbells with cameras can be repurposed for bedroom doors. With AI, they can monitor parents 24/7 and lock the bedroom door when they are in a state of undress, or engaged in activities that you wouldn't want their kids to walk in and see.
Mirrors can be replaced by screens, cameras and AI. If you are dressed, you see a mirror image (pay extra, and it will di Caprio you, to boost your self esteem). But if you are naked, it will blur parts of you, so you do not see yourself naked.
All cameras sold it in the UK will soon have this auto-blurring capability, so you will not be able to photograph or video any form of nudity.
NHS workers will be given adapted meta goggles which block anything naked, with additional training so they insert catheters and conduct surgery unsighted.
Obviously, famous art works depicting nudes will not be burned on bonfires. They will be sold to foreign perverts. It is calculated that if every artistic object held in the UK, publicly or privately, was sold, it might raise enough money to complete HS2 by 2050, allowing people to travel a little faster from just outside London to just outside Birmingham.
I have to admit that it might be easier and cheaper just to have two internets, one reserved for children and British adults, with all content licensed and whitelisted.
I'm an avid reader of Victorian and Edwardian literature (and that means the cheap 'n cheerful stuff, not just Dickens) so I'm quite up to speed on Victorian social graces and morality, The one thing you can say about morality in that era is that it was pragmatic. Their world was obviously different - male dominated and rigidly structured by class with the upper classes in particular approaching marriage as an exercise in stock breeding rather than anything to do with romance (so what's new?) but within that envelope there was a pretty good understanding of things like 'needs'. Unfortunately its easy to slag off this era because of the way that popular culture has promoted just a handful of stereotypes.
One thing that was omnipresent there was the notion of honor which meant, among other things, that gentlemen did not read other's mail. This rather quaint notion persisted up to WW1 (when the British finally realized that Germany had no such sensibilities) so to a Victorian the idea of poking around in someone's private papers looking for smut would be unthinkable.
The idea's pretty weird today, if you think about it. In my (albeit limited) experience people who are constantly looking for perversions tend to be a bit, er, 'strange' themselves. They really can't help it, its like this is front and center in their mind while most of us have all sorts of everyday things competing for our attention. Unfortunately at a government level this kind of obsession is a cover for impotence -- you can't do anything about real problems, its too difficult, so you invent ones you can deal with and pretend that you're really being quite efficient.
"so to a Victorian the idea of poking around in someone's private papers looking for smut would be unthinkable."
I've run across smut from Victorian times. I expect that a censor coming across some would just think to themselves, "just some smut, not important" and move on. Depending on class, they may or may not share it around if it were any good. There would likely be instructions to not take notice.
A "censor" who's searching through personal files should have legitimate reason to do so, if the censor were anything to do with "the authorities" I'm pretty sure that any smut they found would be noted and assessed for "leverage" potential
I cannot imagine that any automated trawling exercise wouldn't be reporting back to some central authority what you're into.
Which country is your hypothetical Victorian censor operating in?
Let's take Austro-Hungary, Imperial Russia, the Ottroman Empire and the French 2nd Empire as 4 examples. I don't think the secret police of any of those would require any basis beyond "this is literally my job" and the same would be true of the NSA/GCHQ now.
"A "censor" who's searching through personal files should have legitimate reason to do so
It would be in time of war as it had to previously be done manually and that costs loads of money. These days with communications being mainly digital, it can be done in milliseconds without staff and no telltale clues it has been read, for almost no money. Ok, the computers and leccy cost money, but the amortized price per intercept after that is a rounding error.
I've run across smut from Victorian times.
The Victorians were a horny bunch in their own way. Far from the usual prudish, repressed stereotype. But made up for it by overcompensating in public and being a bit obsessed with policing outsiders and sexual rebels.
A bit like how the reddest, most homophobic US states end up searching for the most gay porn when Pornhub release their years in review data.
"Unfortunately at a government level this kind of obsession is a cover for impotence -- you can't do anything about real problems, its too difficult, so you invent ones you can deal with and pretend that you're really being quite efficient."
The big problem is that it's not possible to legislate morality. All that can be done is to push towards a certain moral standard and that's it. Anything injurious is a problem, but if consenting adults are game, injuries may happen. The issue with children is how a line is drawn between smut and kiddies enjoying a hot day a the lake "free and natural". I wasn't shy about making myself cooler when I was a tot, much to the consternation of my mother. I didn't always take note of where said clothes were deposited.
LJ Peters had a term for this which annoyingly, escapes me. Something like Extended Confabualtion. The incompetent became an "expert" in some irrelevant activity to their real job which deflected attntion from their incompetence. His example was a headmaster who focused on organising child movement in corridors while competent deputy ran school
The problem isn't just Sir Starmer of Establishment, it's the whole malignant system that installs him and any other PM. If a politician that the media can't just ignore is not on the "approved list" then, well, you don't need me to point out how they're treated. Contrast that with Count Farage of Dogwhistle and his safe seat on BBCQT.
A "Knight of the Realm" leading the party that was formed to protect ordinary people from that "realm"? No wonder we're screwed.
"It is calculated that if every artistic object held in the UK, publicly or privately, was sold, it might raise enough money to complete HS2 by 2050, allowing people to travel a little faster from just outside London to just outside Birmingham."
I just watched a show on HS2 the other day and there's was much talk about competing with France, Japan and Turkey so, of course, it needs to go 400kph. In an age where it's becoming less needful to be physically present somewhere to conduct business, there's less of a need to get there 10-20 minutes faster. I've seen some good analysis done by enthusiasts for free showing estimated time improvements by having express services that don't stop at every station. It might take adding another set of tracks along stretches so trains can move around slower traffic, but that's far less than HSR. Putting the same work on grade separation that's required for HSR cost the same for the bridges and tunnels, but the track and power requirements are much less.
The IwoT is a great name. Filing off the serial numbers now for reuse.
There are really good reasons for investment in infrastructure projects, circular economy and all that, national pride (not the type espoused by certain world champion hide and seek playing champion hipoliticians) not being the least of them.
There are not enough good reasons for HS2 to make it a good investment yet it's been backed and cheered on by every government that's had their hands on it, it's become a project that's impossible to cancel, a political suicide pill.
"There are not enough good reasons for HS2 to make it a good investment yet it's been backed and cheered on by every government that's had their hands on it, it's become a project that's impossible to cancel, a political suicide pill."
It was approved so the politicians could whip out their willy and give it a good wave. I doubt they looked at defining the problem, if one existed and listed the different ways it could be solved. Somebody was having a few and mused how great it would be to get from London to Manchester in 3.4s with a rolling start. Has to be HSR, then. Of course it will be much longer than 3.4s, it won't go all the way and will cost rather more than anybody imagined for the truncated version. Never mind that 2hrs to go 200 miles is pretty good already. Driving could be double that or more and usually is. Knocking it down to an hour for double the fare? Why? How about looking at making some incremental improvements on the existing line and adding trains so anytime one wants to go, it's likely a train will be leaving pretty soon?
I think somebody important gave the game away a few weeks ago!
HST (High Speed Train) was chosen as a name to get the attention and the money. In actual fact, and that's been born out by recent announcements, is that HST was and is really just a way of getting more capacity on the track, with higher speed and slightly shorter journey times a bit further back.
When my daughter was 6 we needed to define 'p0rn'...
Its simple she said to us:
If it is surrounded by cherubs, or an urn, its art.
If it's surrounded by a gilt frame it's art.
If costs more than £10000, then its art
If it's a statue and the arms were never part of the sculpture, cut off just below the shoulders, then its art
If it's in a museum it's art.
- client-side scanning - sorry....the STASI will not be installing ANY software on my end points!
- breaking E2EE - sorry.....I'm already using private encryption BEFORE messages get to Signal!
Isn't it interesting that we've had six "leaders" since 2010 (Cameron, May, Johnson, Truss, Sunak, Starmer)
and we may be about get number seven..................but changing the guy (or gal) at the top MAKES NO
DIFFERENCE AT ALL.........we still move steadily towards a STASI state?
@AC
You forgot about needing TWO machines:
(1) This one has very little software - just enough to be functional - and connected to the interweb
(2) This one is a fully functional machine - just air-gapped
.....with thumb drives (or similar) to get data from one to the other.
The key concept at work here is TRUST........no trust at all for the interweb......maybe some
trust for a personally managed air-gapped machine.
Sigh!!
which isn't either a cat picture
Celia Walden: "I got an explicit content warning...about a photo of my cat"
The article is behind a paywall, but if you scroll up/down, you'll see the offending picture of the cat...
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/06/09/explicit-content-warning-photo-cat/
client-side scanning - sorry....the STASI will not be installing ANY software on my end points!
You will install it yourself when your end points won't be able to connect to the outside world without it.
Until then, Google, Microsoft and Apple will install it for you. Silently. For your convenience, of course.
"changing the guy (or gal) at the top MAKES NO DIFFERENCE AT ALL."
That's because it's the civil serpentry that do all the work and they don't change. They're all fabians with humanities degrees, which explains why nothing ever works and why we're on an express train to a marxist one world government. They consider that UN Agenda 2030 trumps any democratic mandate. So unless we "drain the swamp", as they say in the USA, we're not going to change anything.
Imagine Apple played ball with legislation akin to this. The dev time for a functionality like this would be very expensive indeed, so they'd want to get the most out of it they could. It would not be a hard spin to set up, to push it in all regions saying "Oh we've put this new safety feature in for underage users, our parental controls are the best in the business!" and win some public trust points that way. Everyone now suffers the detriment to their privacy as a result.
I don't think Apple would want to do that - they'd want as many people as possible to know they aren't snooping on them.
However, other governments will be saying "Apple has the tech already. It works in the UK (whether it does or not is irrelevant). Let's make the same law here"
So, I agree that this will effect other countries too, but not for the reason you suggest.
Any business would want as many people as possible to think that they aren't snooping on them, while also profitably snooping on all of them and others to an incredible level.
But that definitely doesn't include apple.
Just look at the still remaining in effect abomination the US Patriot Act. Every bit as pernicious as the UK IPA.
Combine that with a lawless President and device scanning.
The US is not far from a resumption of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC).
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Imagine Apple played ball with legislation akin to this. The dev time for a functionality like this would be very expensive indeed, so they'd want to get the most out of it they could. It would not be a hard spin to set up, to push it in all regions saying "Oh we've put this new safety feature in for underage users, our parental controls are the best in the business!" and win some public trust points that way. Everyone now suffers the detriment to their privacy as a result.
Apple already tried it, a backlash halted it. BDSM campaigers created something called backlash.org.uk about restrictions to their lifestyle/business.
https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/apple-client-side-scanning-system
From the little I've seen thus far, the new parental controls in iOS 27 look like a sensible way to go.
I think the problem from HMG's perspective is that it clearly leaves the parents with the responsibility for what Junior sees on their device. I suspect that's not sufficient, HMG must do the parenting.
> the first country in the world to make it impossible for <anygroup> to take, share or view <whatever> images
I suppose in achieving the patently impossible the UK would be first.
If it were phrased "reduce the risk" of the hazard of children taking etc then you might have a game but even then you might soon conclude: sod this for a game of soldiers.
As a commentard wrote earlier today "choosing to fight unwinnable battle[’]s - with the obvious half-baked knee jerk reactionism.." which would accurately describe the UK government on this and most other issues. Starmer san would appear to be even more devoid of ideas than of ideals. The bloke really is thick.
Starmer san would appear to be even more devoid of ideas than of ideals. The bloke really is thick.
Starmer isn't thick, he's just evil. Government(s) love 'nudge' politics and creeping compulsion, and this is just part of that. So first we got age verification to access pron. Then we got an announcement that there would be a 'voluntary' DigitalID app. Then to protect the children, devices will need an app and scanning to prevent nudity. Adults will still be able to adult, but if nudity is detected, the content scanner will grab a copy and permit it, providing age is verified. The content scanner will, of course permit other messages to be scanned. The Internet will then become a safe space for politicians-
https://thepressunited.com/updates/german-man-fined-months-income-for-calling-merz-lying-fritz/
The case is just one of dozens of proceedings over online insults against the chancellor
A German court has ruled that calling Chancellor Friedrich Merz a “lying Fritz” should be criminally prosecuted because of “particular public interest,” slapping the offender with a fine amounting to an average monthly salary, or more than €2,000 ($2,322).
And then suggestions that ISPs will have to block connection attempts from devices that don't have DigitalID and government trojans installed.
It's not specifically Starmer. The digital ID thing has been a Labour aspiration for the last 3 decades or so. Cameron's government celebrated the 800th anniversary year of the signing of Magna Carta by a new Investigatory Powers Act to further screw down on the presumption of innocence.
They've all been trying to get ID cards back in ever since they were scrapped after WWII ended, to much opposition.
We didn't defeat "national socialism", we imported it. We've just had to wait until everyone who survived the fight against it died off before we can implement it.
If China and North Korea can't block all communications with the outside world then I doubt the UK would have better luck...
One has access to VPN and Tor...
The genie is well and truly out of the bottle.
It's not as if the age id stuff is working particularly well for anyone that's remotely technically minded.
They can't obtain perfect control. North Korea almost has it, but by using methods like preventing any internet traffic from most of their citizens which wouldn't work in the UK. China has much less control. The problem is that the UK can have quite a lot of control, up to and including the level that China has, if they feel like it. That's still a problem, even though some can evade it. Even without any technical measures, they can get a lot of things simply by making certain conduct illegal, with a stronger effect by punishing that thing. Perfect can be the enemy of the good, and in this case, perfect control being impossible doesn't prevent a lot of bad from being not that hard to generate.
"If China and North Korea can't block all communications with the outside world then I doubt the UK would have better luck...
One has access to VPN and Tor..."
If more and more of the internet is being filtered, finding away around becomes much harder. For just NK and China to be restricted makes it easier to push through. Tor won't be allowed. It will be screened for and having a copy a major offense. Only the most hardcore "revolutionaries" will risk it. If it means their spouse and children will be sent North to a special city while one will enter a very opaque "legal" system, many will fall in line. It could also be the both in the couple are imprisoned and the kids sent elsewhere to be raised by The State. A single 20-something might be rebellions, but people with a family are less likely to be.
"The case is just one of dozens of proceedings over online insults against the chancellor"
This needs to be placed in context with German law and German society in general. Germany has laws covering insulting people and people are "required" to respect public officials (i.e. police, politicans, etc).
Technically speaking to a German policeman using "du" (the informal form of "you") rather than "sie" (the formal form of "you") could be considered showing a lack of respect.
Background info:
https://se-legal.de/services/criminal-defense-lawyer/defamation-libel-lawyer-germany/insult/?lang=en
https://www.thetimes.com/world/europe/article/germany-insult-laws-explained-freedom-speech-cd5qdq0jq
https://www.thegermanreview.de/p/the-mini-erdogans-of-berlin
But we know this isn't about the children. If it were, you'd have this client-side scanning switched off by default and password controlled by parents, who are the ones buying the phones for their kids. There are already adequate provisions for parents to control their kids' phones, so why not just help them with an education programme? No, this is ALL about rolling out mandatory Digital ID, nothing else. One more step towards the world-wide Chinese style social credit/control system mandated by the WEF & UN.
So far, they don't, and their thing doesn't work. It's not clear whether they'll just ignore that and pretend it does work or fix it. If they did decide to fix it, there are plenty of ways to make this work as long as you're willing to lose all privacy in an obvious and overbearing way. Fortunately for them, they are, making things like constant biometric scans and a unified biometric database valid solutions if they do decide they need a system that isn't full of holes.
@Ian_Johnston
Good question!
But you are missing the point! NO ONE is trying to "establish that a child is using the device".
The folk in Westminster are trying to establish that "they are doing something"...................
You know....like writing acres of environmental laws....and then doing nothing about all our rivers full of sewage!
You know....like setting up PREVENT.......and looking the other way when kids are murdered at dance class!
Yup...."They are doing something".
Soon enough, via constantly taking photos via the camera and biometrically analyzing to confirm that only the authorized used is using the device I presume.
iMonsters already have a IR face scanning functionality that takes a face scan that is hard to fake and is somewhat reliable - it seems everything governments would need has already been handed to them on a silver platter.
That may or may not be the present intent but the impracticality will be realised in due course.
I'm sure this is the intent, both for the UK and EU. It's the logical conclusion of years of softening up around 'hate speech', 'misinformation' and the desire to be able to automate issuing of fines for anyone naughty. Can't automate that unless you can ID the miscreant to bill. Then mask the Orwellian proposals with a cover of 'thinking of the children'.
Oh, and glossing over boring little concepts like parental responsibility, but those can simply be outsourced to the nanny state.
I see you got a downvote, presumably from someone who feels that it's entirely appropriate for government to be controlling and limiting "hate speech".
I would say to that downvoter - so, as you feel that's a legitimate capability for government to have, you'd be happy with Prime Minister Badenoch having it, or Prime Minister Farage?
If you say "no, but they're different" then you're a fucking hypocrite.
Meanwhile if the kids want to watch porn, they will have returned to the pre-early Internet days … have secured a second hand DVD Player from CEX and be swapping pirate DVD’s from the bloke down honest Wellesbourne Market. Also available jailbroken FireTV sticks (that Amazon no longer support).
Are Samsung going to be tasked with age verification on TV’s next. Apparently Babestation still broadcasts.
—-
If only they would as much effort into dealing with the pervasive impacts of gambling …..
> How, precisely, do they intend to establish that a child is using the device?
That's easy: the Government will introduce a service whereby you send a picture of your genitalia and the service will decide whether you are adult or not based on the picture.
I've already lined-up a Government spokesperson to say "The safe and secure storage of your submitted photos is our top priority."
<\sarc>
"I've already lined-up a Government spokesperson to say "The safe and secure storage of your submitted photos is our top priority.”"
Closely followed by “this was a sophisticated, nation-state backed hack which showed that, alas, the pictures of everyone’s bits had been stored in an unsecured AWS bucket. But lessons have been learnt...."
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.... have a custom ROM installed on my previous mobile. When I went to a Fairphone 4 I was happy enough with the OS that I left it in place. I can see myself in the future exploring the options that avoid this level of snooping, whether it is /e/OS, Sailfish OS, or a custom ROM. I flat refuse to have to supply proof of identity to use my own device for whatever I decide to use it for.
No matter what they come up with to put my phone in jail I will be one of those that puts in the effort to jailbreak it just as a matter of principle.
----------> He might be trying to watch me, but I'm going to make it as difficult for him as I possibly can!
I flat refuse to have to supply proof of identity to use my own device for whatever I decide to use it for.
This is a noble sentiment, except dark forces are already moving against you. So no DigitalIDiot identity & spyware on your device, and your device will not be able to connect to the Internet, or you'll only be connect to a landing page to enrol in the DigitalIDiot scheme-
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cly752ydjw6o
Silkie Carlo, director of Big Brother Watch, said: "Protecting children online is vital, but these are outrageous plans that will fail to address the underlying causes of online harm."
"Put simply, the Labour government is threatening ID checks for the internet. No-one in a democracy should need to show their passport just to get online."
Except this is precisely the path the government is going down, with policy proposals pretty much forcing DigitalIDiot cards for all. You must prove you're an adult, which means proving your identity, which means anything you say or do online may be used against you in court. Especially when there's mutterings about enrolling ISPs as enforcers. At the high level, government tech advisor PoV, an Internet connection, whether fixed or mobile is already a VPN. You need to authenticate as a customer of that ISP so they can bill you. So 'simply' add an authentication check for age verification, and the children will be saved!
'Simple' enough for mobiles with existing subscriber verification methods. Less simple for other access methods, eg broadband. But that's the joy of legislation, just write the laws and then kick the can over to industry to implement an authentication method that can verify ID, age and content scanning. Apple is already doing this, as is AlphaGoo and the EU is also working towards the same ends. So if your device isn't authenticated, it just won't work. Children and politicians egos will be saved!
Oh, and want to bet that legislation will exclude MPs from this mass surveillance and censorship machinery Labour is hell bent on creating?
"Also holding the phone up to a sleeping parent for validation"
I haven't seen a story, but nicking an iPhone while somebody is asleep and scanning their face to unlock it might not be unfathomable. Once phones are unlocked, it's not hard to plug in something that keeps them powered and tickles them enough so they don't go back to sleep. With mandates that all new phones use the same plug, there's not even the issue with faffing about in a collection to find a plug that fits.
If you look at court proceedings week in and week out in the UK, people with lots of CSA* material (including some of the really nasty stuff) keep getting a slap on the wrist community service etc. rather than long jail sentences.
Also often see rapists of minors getting a wrist slap or ludicrously short sentences
e.g. FFS
If they really care about children, how about locking away some nonces.
* Child Sexual Abuse
If you read the update to that you'll see that the two boys who committed the rapes have extreme levels of learning disability, which is why a criminal record was seen as inappropriate.
It seems to me that if they lack any understanding of consent they are probably best kept off the streets indefinitely, but perhaps the rehabilitation order is a good first start at trying to manage then.
A custodial sentence doesn't have to mean prison, but something involuntary and secure is not out of line. They are a danger to the public to be allowed to roam loose as they have shown. If they are too retarded to not understand that rape is wrong, it's hard to see why they wouldn't do it again if they had fun.
" But prison and criminal records are probably not going to do any good."
Replace "prison" with "institution". The difference being conditions and roommates. The criminal record should be there as there's no other mechanism to note that somebody is a problem and should be kept away from certain places such as schools, daycare, playgrounds and anything else to do with children (children being the most vulnerable). No jobs in security or positions where they might be left alone with people such as a bus/taxi driver.
".....the two boys who committed the rapes have extreme levels of learning disability, which is why a criminal record was seen as inappropriate.
Whilst I can see that point, if their mental incapacity means that they are unable to appreciate the reasons why what they did was so evil, I would suggest that there will continue to be a significant risk of them doing similar again in the future.
Whilst some argue that locking them away would be detrimental to <them>, I would counter that leaving them at large represents a very real threat to the safety of other girls and young women, They absolutely <should> be locked away to keep those girls and women safe from them (at the very least until/unless they come to understand the error of their ways and can be considered to no longer be likely to commit a repeat of that rape).
Perhaps not class but influence or how useful you are - I’m sure the Al Yamanh and Andy’s dabs in it will be blocked (again) on grounds of national security like B-lair did.
Misconduct in a Public Office - which is topical right now - seems to be good enough for bent coppers, bent councillors… and Andy and Mandy
..:….. but not for WMD liar Blair or Boris ‘party gate//proroguing Parliament /covid VIP lane’ Johnson.
Mary Whitehouse was a well-meaning, yet sometimes overly zealous, protector of public morals. The movement she created took a keen interest in berating TV producers when nudity (or sparse clothing), lewd innuendo, and impious thought, was broadcast. Her National Viewers' and Listeners' Association became influential, but that declined during the 70s.
Mr Starmer is totally lacking the charm and humour of Mrs Whitehouse and, even in a parliament of mainly dimwits, he comes across as an intellect which, by comparison, makes former PM Boris Johnson look sage. Mr Starmer's obsession with nudity is bizarre. He doesn't distinguish it from obscene, repellent, and already illegal acts. Whilst most people, including Mr Starmer and all his cabinet members, look better well-covered than with all their bits and pieces displayed, nudity per se is something children and adults should take in their stride. If simple nudity becomes the focus for law enforcement, then police will be overwhelmed by offences reported or detected electronically. That will distract due attention away from genuine physical abuses of children and of vulnerable adults.
As suggested by other commentators, Mr Starmer's motivations have little to do with the wellbeing of anybody else other than himself and his (non-electorate) backers. It will suit him, the Opposition parties too, for non-sexual deviant thought to be stifled or caught and prosecuted. Not only is one forbidden from openly proclaiming sympathy with the aims of Palestine Action, and issuing similar not approved by the WEF sentiments, but also private conversations will be caught in the net.
She was not. She was a narrow minded little bigot who would have got cross that outfits like Reform nicked her tricks.
She headed an organisation that would happily have perjured itself to send people to jail if they hadn't been rumbled by a court.
Do not rewrite history. *My* history.
I recollect some of the broadcasting people who were butts of her campaigns regarded her with grudging affection.
Alice Cooper was a target of hers because of the song School’s Out which she hated. Her objection was that it promted anarchy in the nation’s educational establishments up and down the land. She was so effective in her campaign that it was banned from Top Of The Pops, which as anyone my age can tell you was a godsend to your sales. The song made number one on the back of this and Alice sent her a thank you bouquet of flowers. I remember hearing him in an interview saying what a lovely woman she was and thanking her for her intervention.
When I started working in broadcasting someone told me how her organisation the NVLA in the 1980’s were against Channel 4 showing their late night films. These were international arthouse films that might have a fight or a shot of a naked breast (just one in a 90 minute film). Of course she was outraged and they campaigned to get a warning added at the start and a “red triangle” on screen during the film’s broadcast. Again this backfired as it made those films very popular. One of my school friends stayed up to watch one of thses “naughty films” on a Friday night and said he was bored shitless. She also had a hand in getting the BBFC (the film censors) to regulate videos too. They were only doing cinema films until her campaign, the upshot of which was the BBFC regulating vidoes too and resulted in a crackdown on the so called video nasties.
I remember watching the Kenny Everett show when it first came out.
The dance group they had was Hot Gossip and was somewhat risque, to say the least. Mary Whitehouse complained and so every show after that, Kenny started with the line:
Warning - This Show Contains Naughty Bits.
Very amusing.
Did wonders for the viewer ratings.
"Mr Starmer is a highly intelligent and I believe well intentioned man trying to lead a party dominated by bossy social workers. Poor bastard."
So, intelligent but lacking a spine?
Bossy social workers aren't the PM. They aren't even the cat, Larry.
Lets not forget that Stamer has form when it comes to over-zealous internet busybodying:
2012:
'Twitter joke' case only went ahead at insistence of DPP
https://www.theguardian.com/law/2012/jul/29/paul-chambers-twitter-joke-airport
Who was DPP? Yup, Starmer
we all know who needs controlling the big tech companies but they have bought governments to control us - I would have expected Labour to be more intelligent but looks like they are as in the back pockets of business more than the Tories. If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck.
Labour converged with the Conservatives when Mr Blair - a repellent individual exuding fake charm - saw opportunity for his own financial advancement from throwing in his lot with Neoliberal economic and social policy. Now he heads a 'foundation', the sourcing of its funds being a matter better not inquired into lest one incur the wrath of people far more despicable than Mr Blair.
If the industry really cares about this, they should build a child-targeted device with all of this blocking stuff baked into it. Children under a certain age should only be allowed to have one of those, if not, blame their parents. There should be no reason for parents to not have one of those for their kids, right?
Once they reach a certain age they can get rid of the thing and buy an "unrestricted" device.
The real goal is to identify the law infringing individuals, which is a good cause, but to make each and everyone of us a suspect and under constant surveillance is questionable. You would not allow a foreign law enforcement officer in your house checking your whereabouts all day long, would you?
There should be no reason for parents to not have one of those for their kids, right?
Why do parent's need to have a reason "to not have one"? Maybe the parent decides that having no device is appropriate for their child.
The current "reason" for snooping is to prevent sharing nudes, but there is much more on social media that is very unsavoury. Many of the social media platforms are addictive by design and the behaviours they develop in users can be deleterious. Maybe parents simply do not want their children becoming involved in the whole social media scene.
If this was about safeguarding children then obliging social media platforms to avoid addictive practices would be a more useful way to go.
The use of AI to recognize nude pictures and to act based on that, is the first step towards automating justice and considering, at least for now, that AI cannot be trusted 100% to not hallucinate, this can be an accident waiting to happen, with a scandal which would make the Post Office one seem a lightweight.
Some will shout that there should be no restrictions, without reasonably explaining how to protect kids from online harm (shrugging and saying ‘“it’s the parent’s responsibility” is not a reasonable response).
Some will shout that there should maximum restrictions to protect kids at all costs, without reasonably explaining how to safeguard against an authoritarian nightmare (shrugging and saying “it’d never happen here” is not a reasonable response).
There needs to be a balance struck between these positions.
I’d like to calmly suggest that the current situation could be vastly improved upon, and that providing parents with simple and robust tools to protect their kids is the way to go. A set of standards should be written for these tools, lead by research and common sense with minimal corporate or political influence. You know, kinda like the good old days.
What's wrong here is that you - and Starmer, and many more - are seeking to treat the symptoms. The images are a symptom of the harm done to the victims. Simply attempting to hide them is closing the eyes to the original harm and thus letting it continue. What should be done is to identify those responsible, charge them, try them and, if convicted, give them deterrent sentences.
Not passing proper sentences and ignoring grooming gangs is the problem.
If the police, cps, judges, magistrates and politicians really meant to deal with the issue they would pass real long sentences and follow up all allegations regardless of political correctness.
It is A problem…. It is not THE problem.
There is no single primary cause of child sexual abuse (CSA) in the UK; rather, it is driven by a complex interplay of perpetrator motives, systemic power imbalances, and environmental factors. Research shows abuse is overwhelmingly opportunistic and largely committed by someone the child knows and trusts.The underlying dynamics that drive CSA in the UK fall into several core areas:1. Perpetrator Motives and DelusionsPower and Control: Many perpetrators are driven by a desire to assert power, manage difficult emotions, or gain status.Distorted Thinking: Abusers often manipulate their own psychology to justify their actions. They may convince themselves that the abuse is harmless, that they are entitled to sexual dominance, or that the child's feelings do not matter.Psychological Factors: Contributing issues can include poor emotional regulation, obsessions, or an inability to empathize.2. The Role of Trust and AuthorityFamiliarity: Over one-third of physical-contact CSA victims are abused by a friend, acquaintance, or family member.Position of Trust: Perpetrators often include people who have authority or respect, such as family members, teaching staff, or community figures. This allows them to groom both the child and their environment to avoid detection.3. Child and Environmental VulnerabilitiesAbusers target children and teenagers who are perceived as more vulnerable. Key risk factors that increase a child's susceptibility include:Background Challenges: Children experiencing domestic abuse, parental substance misuse, or general neglect are significantly more at risk.Disability: Disabled children are statistically twice as likely to be targeted by abusers.Social Isolation: Abusers often exploit situations where families are isolated, lack a supportive network of adults, or live in unsettled home environments.4. Grooming and TechnologyThe "Boyfriend" Model: Many older abusers use grooming tactics, showering the victim with attention or gifts, to make the child believe they are in a consensual or romantic relationship.Online Exploitation: A significant amount of abuse is facilitated by digital technology. Perpetrators use social media, gaming platforms, or messaging apps to target multiple children at once, share illicit images, and coerce or manipulate children into dangerous situations.For comprehensive information or to understand the scope of research, you can explore reports from the Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) Centre or the NSPCC Learning resources.
It’s perhaps a consequence of a patriarchy and theocratic oriented society, but it’s most definitely not a cultural thing/norm. That’s a racist trope.
“In Islam, rape (zina bil-jabr or ightisab) is considered a major sin and a serious crime, defined as forced or coercive unlawful sexual intercourse. Islamic teachings mandate that the victim bears no guilt or punishment, while the perpetrator faces severe legal and spiritual penalties.”
Don’t forget there is a crisis of misogyny and dismal domestic and sexual abuse prosecution and convictions in many Westernised democracies. Inc the UK.
…Is that a cultural thing too ???
Neither are ok, for the avoidance of doubt. The UK should have a functioning justice system… well when it’s not chasing grannies, vicars and people maliciously sitting down with ‘I support Palestine Action’ signs.
"I’d like to calmly suggest that the current situation could be vastly improved upon,...."
It could indeed - a good start would be to make available the resources to catch and prosecute those responsible for creating the objectionable stuff in the first place, and ensuring that when they are convicted they are given meaningful punishments that will either deter tham from propagating such material in the future, or keep them locked away from being able to make and distribute such material for a very long time.
The answer is to try to cut the bad stuff off at source, but as seems to be usual with politicians, they always go for tackling problems from the wrong direction, and the problem continues to be a problem.
As Dr Syntax has said - they only seem able to see as far as the symptoms
Yes, but don't place much faith in deterrence by severe sentencing. Historically, fear of punishment has not dramatically reduced criminality; canny criminals adapt their behaviour to become less visible; others don't think about consequences of their actions. In the eighteenth century there is the example of an English public hangman being himself hanged for theft.
When deterrence fails there's always preventative detention. The reality is that there'll always be criminality. You can't take a blanket approach and say "creating this new criminal offence will deal with it". That's the legislator's approach and at best it doesn't work and at worst it has bad side effects that should have been obvious. The sad fact is that you have to deal with individual cases, detect them, try them and then work out what's the best - rehabilitation, some form of punishment that should be a deterrent or simply removing from society for a long period to protect that society.
As it's not a controlled experiment we have no evidence as to the extent that earlier extreme punishment acted as deterrence or not. The contrary factor influencing behaviour was extreme poverty.
It IS the parents' responsibility. It is quite reasonable to expect tech companies to provide a mechanism for the parents to be able to restrict what a device for their kid can access, but it's not reasonable for governments to use 'think of the children' as a dragnet to trawl for data from the whole population - which is what they are trying to do here.
"Some will shout that there should be no restrictions, without reasonably explaining how to protect kids from online harm (shrugging and saying ‘“it’s the parent’s responsibility” is not a reasonable response)."
They've existed for years!!! This is what's so maddening.
* Parental controls on smartphones - iOS even has a "sensitive content" setting on the iMessage app.
* Web filters on your home broadband (Sky Broadband Shield has existed since 2013 as the one I know about, but it's mandated across all the big ISPs), enabled by default for all new customers?
* The Internet Watch Foundation filter for all broadband providers has been there for about 20 years for illegal stuff.
* Mobile ISPs have had adult content switched off by default since the dawn of 3G - mine still doesn't have it enabled because at the beginning you needed to go into a retail store and show a passport or driving licence, and I could never be arsed.
* Now we've got mainstream internet providers forced to register your ID (and presumably your browsing "niches")
I'm not a conspiracy theorist by any stretch, but I'm dubious as to the motivations of this level of government oversight. Not least because it's a very convenient headline winner for the "won't someone please think of the children" vibe.
"* Mobile ISPs have had adult content switched off by default since the dawn of 3G - mine still doesn't have it enabled because at the beginning you needed to go into a retail store and show a passport or driving licence, and I could never be arsed."
That's not going to work. There's adult content everywhere and it gets moved from that website to someplace more accessible on a regular basis. My web host provides me 20gb or so of storage. If I were in school, I might set up a friend's only FTP site for the exchange of such files. Problem circumvented. If somebody brought out a modern BBS package again, even better as there'd be more tools for managing access.
Everything's "not going to work" though. None of what Starmer is suggesting would prevent you setting up a local FTP site on your web host either. Just as it wouldn't stop them swapping USB sticks, or emailing it to each other.
From my memory, the IWF watchlist, mobile blockers and ISP parental controls are pretty good - obviously not going to stop your approach, but certainly a damn site better than the drivel the Online Safety Act rolled out. Some dodgy Russian porn site isn't going to comply with the OSA, but I'd bet the ISP level blockers (that again, have existed and been available to parents for over a decade) would have blacklisted it
Just buy a second hand DVD player for a few £ down CEX or on eBay, and down to your local market for some black market DVD’s.
The Police don’t have the time/resources as they are still implementing (likely unlawful) Proscription Prohibitions on Palestine Action Grannies and Clergy or setting up knee-jerk reactionary Jewish Lives Matter task forces.
Your council Trading Standards have had resources slashed due to Central Government austerity since George Osbourne.
There's plenty of discussion that should happen, starting with a part you've missed out, defining what harm is and why we need to protect people from it in a way different than what we already have. You have jumped to the conclusion that there is a problem that needs solving, which you then use as your basis. Without deciding what that harm is, your proposals are useless because we cannot evaluate them for whether they do anything. What is it that we need to protect children from and why are existing methods insufficient? Those answers will be your opinion and I might well disagree with that, but right now, we don't even have that. Without knowing why the existing methods aren't sufficient, we can't define what the standards should be, and without deciding what we need those methods to accomplish, we have a limited ability to decide whether they work.
The arguments I've seen so far are, in my opinion, abysmal. Arguments include that protections must be insufficient because they aren't widely used. They aren't used mostly because parents don't care. They're also deemed insufficient because there's a story online of a child bypassing them. If that child bypassed them because they came with an unauthenticated turn off button, that might be a relevant point. Since they don't, the bypasses are either the common guessing a password the parent failed to keep secure (not my problem) or the rare child found a security exploit in the code and used it to gain elevated access and then turn off what they didn't want (not common, and if it happens, standards aren't going to fix that problem, and probably patching that exploit isn't going to either). I'm also unconvinced by some of the ideas of what harm is, since parents don't seem motivated enough to use any of their tools, technical or parental (don't underestimate the power of those), to block it but I'm supposed to accept that government mandates correctly identify harm based on a record of ignored or missing research. You did not try your own argument, so lacking the better one I assume you could provide, I'm left with the ones I've already heard, and not one of them was convincing.
How about an art student, can they no longer look at pictures of Rodin's statue, the Age of Bronze, or Holy Family with St. Anne and the Infant St. John by Agnolo Bronzino.
Or a Music student researching album covers is blocked from seeing The Scorpions - Virgin Killer, or Jimi Hendrix - Electric Ladyland.
Context is everything.
"How about an art student, can they no longer look at pictures of Rodin's statue, the Age of Bronze, or Holy Family with St. Anne and the Infant St. John by Agnolo Bronzino."
If there's an urn in the image, that's a clue it's art. Loose flowing strips of fabric might also be a indicator. Cherubs are a dead giveaway.
> My Dad has a baby photo of me on the wall in the bath getting washed by my Mum from 1968
Yup got them of me as a baby (and a little older!) in the family album as well, sadly the rozzers will need a medium to interview my parents now. Actually thinking about it probably half the current adult population will need to be locked up as well.
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Back in the days when you took a film to a shop to get developed a& printed (D & P) the company actually did this. As the mother was a well-known BBC newsreader the company and police got enough attention to make them wish they'd engaged their brains before taking it further.
Interesting. You know, for all your criticism of countries that aren't Canada, you don't seem to read articles too much. If you had, you might have read a sentence saying "The company has previously mulled exiting Sweden over proposed encryption-busting laws, and more recently Canada, as it debates a bill that would compel platforms like Signal to gather its users' metadata, which could include their locations and who they are talking to." and linking to this more detailed article on that subject.
None of these proposals are good, but I'd note that Canada's proposal is the one that would collect who you're talking to and store it for later misuse, while neither the UK nor US would do so (yet). The same applies to your location history. If you take every issue and turn it into nationalistic smugness, you'll miss when things are happening where you live. Imagine some US person who is proud of the freedoms they're sure their country provides while ignoring all the things you know and hate about their governments actions and plans. Don't be that guy with the flags switched; it doesn't help convince anyone and it doesn't help your own privacy or security.
@doubleayer
Quote: "....Canada's proposal is the one that would collect who you're talking to and store it for later misuse...."
Assumptions again! Suppose we are talking about two workstations "talking" by email.
(1) The sender might just be using a VPN!
(2) The recipient might just be using a temporary email address at mail.com.....and collecting mail across another VPN!
(3) Suppose the email had been privately encrypted. I know...."forward secrecy"....but most messages have a sharply declining value over time.
What exactly would the Canadians be collecting? Would they even be able to "misuse" what they collected?
What's your point? That through significant effort, you think you could circumvent this? Unless your opinion is that this makes the law unimportant, your confidence about avoiding it doesn't change whether it's a problem. Since I never argued that Canada's law would be perfect, unavoidable surveillance, pointing out that it isn't does not change anything.
Interesting. The legislation in question has been leaked, and says absolutely nothing like what you are accusing Canada of. Rather, they're proposing age restrictions and national legislation regulating social media. That's why these companies are "leaving" - they don't want to enforce age restrictions on their applications.
Tough shit. You do not have a "right" to the Canadian market without following our legislation and laws. Screw America's "freedom of speech" fraud that lets neo-Nazi's like Musk spread hatred and misinformation at will!
"Interesting. The legislation in question has been leaked, and says absolutely nothing like what you are accusing Canada of. Rather, they're proposing age restrictions and national legislation regulating social media."
Do you have an allergy to reading? The law in question is C-22, it hasn't been leaked because it's already public, and it has nothing to do with age verification. The Canadian government calls it "timely access to information" (in their description on why this is definitely not warrantless surveillance which it is), and it's about access to data by police. What law are you talking about, and you know you would have identified what law I was talking about by reading either the article I quoted, my comment, or the post we both linked to which specified the bill by number, all of which specified that we were commenting on surveillance and not age verification? The law everyone else knew I was talking about does, in fact, do what I accused it of.
But in addition to once again ignoring things that were right in front of you, you did decide to bring some of that nationalistic smugness. While this isn't about age restrictions, you had opinions about those. When the US was doing that, you said "I have absolutely no intent of installing or using anything that helps the American attempt to build a global fascist surveillance network of "Recall" type intrusions on the operating systems produced on American soil.". When Canada does it, "You do not have a "right" to the Canadian market without following our legislation and laws.", which while legally true, applies equally well to the age verification laws from US states and the one you criticized from the UK in the start of this thread that I also don't like; pointing out that laws are binding doesn't make a point about whether they're good or even acceptable. You inaccurately changed the topic of this discussion to another law, maybe, I'm still not sure what law you were talking about, and you didn't even do that consistently.
Ah, that's reassuring, thank you. It's good to know that Signal, the very people whose warnings about the UK's law you used to support your "worse than 1984" case at the start of this thread, don't have a clue about Canada's law, and their theory that it is worse (they're threatening they'd have to leave Canada while not doing so in the UK) is based on bad information.
I'm glad we have someone so knowledgeable about the details of this law. Not knowledgeable enough that you knew what I was talking about with specific laws mentioned or could find out before deciding it was something unrelated, but you had a couple hours to learn all about it to come to your confident conclusion. A shame you couldn't have shared any of that knowledge; it could have given us all peace of mind that Canadian surveillance is nicer than anyone else's, but I'll assume that you definitely have as much basis for that as you did the rest of your posts.
- Erich Mielke, Ministerium für Staatsicherheit, better known as the Stasi.
El Reg said: image hashes would be checked against a database of other hashes associated with abuse material. If the hashes match, then the image would be blocked.
I have done experiments on large collections of images using "findimagedupes". Hash collisions are commonplace once enough images are being compared. Collisions are inherent to the very concept.
The results are that you get collisions between not just similar images, but also between images that have no obvious similarity between them.
It also misses matching similar photos, also for no obvious reason.
It is still a very useful utility in terms of if you have a collection of images on some subject (like say steam locomotives) and you want to see if a new set you have just acquired are the same but just slightly edited or resized. It's not foolproof but it narrows down the amount of manual comparing you have to do quite drastically. If you are collecting historical material it doesn't need to be 100% accurate to be very useful.
I know the police use a similar program, which is just version of findimagedupes (which I believe is a perl program) that was reverse engineered and rewritten in C# by Microsoft. It's the same algorithm.
The way the police are supposed to use it though is to quickly scan a large collection that belongs to someone who is already a suspect for matches to pre-saved hashes (findimagedupes has this mode too) and then have someone manually inspect just those suspect matches to see if they are indeed real matches. Once the police have even one manually confirmed match they have enough justification to go over everything with a fine tooth comb manually.
The idea however that you can just use a hash match on its own as an automated filter to block images is quite frankly delusional. That isn't how the technology inherently works.
To use something like this on a phone, they would either have to arbitrarily block very large numbers of perfectly legal images that have no obvious similarity to anything illegal, or they would have to routinely automatically report very large numbers of innocent people to the police to be pulled in for interrogation at the latter's discretion.
You know Apple have already mostly done this, right? I sent a picture of my toddler to my wife - her bum was partially visible. My wife got an alert that she'd received "sensitive content" and blurred it, assuring that it was done locally (not in cloud) and could unblur if she chose.
Turned out she had a setting on by default - search for "sensitive content warning" in the settings, it's under the high level Messages section.
At the last iOS upgrade, the phone also asked me to verify my age. When I clicked to see the options to do that, it just said "na, you're fine, you've had your itunes account for 18+ years already"
It's not much of a leap to put those two things together, or at least (more sensibly) allow it to be a parental control. (One quick google later...) - it's already available as a parental control, as well as restricted web browsing.
This is what's pissing me off. All the tools are there. Give a child a smart phone? Use the bloody parental controls then. Enable the safe-surfing option on your ISP at home (been available for 10+ years, from memory it's now the default setting for new customers). Hell, my Vodafone account prevents me accessing "adult" material on the web, has done for 20 years, cos I've never been arsed to go in to a store to show my passport and unlock it.
Not just your toddler's bum...
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/06/09/explicit-content-warning-photo-cat/
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jimmy and jenny , both 15 and in the throws of puberty and access to booze decide "lets do it while mom is at bingo/pub/work"
So they take a photo together as momento BING the thought police bash the door down and they are both dragged off to the ministry of love
Unreasonable? unrealistic? with client side scanning of your phone , entirely likely.
Of course , nobody innocent will be targetted until Mr Jones , fresh out of the shower and keen to impress his missus sends her a picture... and shes forgotton to enable over 18 mode on the phone... well guess hes off to the ministry of love to sit next to jimmy and jenny.
And then theres dear old Aunt dotty... took the neices and nephews to the beach and takes photos... yupp client side scanning does her in too
What needs to be said is that your phone will be scanned for matches by persons unknown whether you want it to be scanned or not and if a few false positives sweep up the innocent, well thats a price well worth paying for getting so many guilty pleas
Meanwhile the kids are using a browser VPN to get a closer view than many doctors ever do
Sounds like Starmer is just doing the dead cat on the table with this to distract from how awful the labour party did in the local elections and how badly hes doing in the opinion polls.
But of course its hard for any of the opposition parties to speak out against what a terrible idea it is it without people accusing them of siding with abusers and failing to protect the kids.
I recall Apple announced they were going to implement something like this about 5 years ago to scan for CSA images on peoples phones, but there was such a backlash against it they dropped the idea.
They have an API that apps can use - and iMessage and Facetime already do use - that scans images for nudity and blurs ones where it is detected. This is opt in but maybe is on by default for child accounts attached to a parent's Apple account? I don't have any minor children so I have no idea. It just detects "nudity", or what it thinks is nudity, so obviously would have both false positives and false negatives to some degree. It does not try to match with known images just what it thinks is "nudity" and it takes place completely on device.
Sounds like the proposed UK law would demand Apple turn that on by default for iPhones in the UK, and you could only disable it when you prove you are over 18. It would also require third party apps like Signal to make use of the API or implement something similar themselves.
About Sensitive Content Warning on Apple devices
I'm certainly not at all a fan of this sort of thing when it is applied to everyone so you have to "prove your age" to opt out, but that seems to be where the nanny staters are trending. So if this sort of thing is required I would prefer the above over some sort of blanket ban that requires you to prove your age to dozens/hundreds of individual apps/websites which is far more invasive.
Having and/or sharing a picture of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel on my phone, or computer can get me in legal trouble? Does it make a difference if I am Catholic or not?
How "nude", or "naked" does a picture have to be to trigger a programed machine? A machine controlled by people that have wrongly assumed they have a responsibility to protect the rest of us from their reality? I thinking a high chance of hypocrisy here,
Never mind pictures, how long till there will be list of forbidden words, in various common languages? I'm seeing another way to control us, using children as an excuse to treat the rest of us as children.
Bloody hell, this idea is dangerous. Where are the parents of these children that need protecting? Leave the rest of us out of this.
That's one motivation. But these policies (e.g. the Online Safety Act) survived a change of prime ministers & governments, so I don't think it matters who is in charge. Who is going to give up their mobile phones though? They've become so indispensable to modern life. Only literally everyone in the UK binning theirs will lead to any kind of change.
People get wound up about the wrong issue with all the 'Covid rule violation' bollocks. The main problem isn't that politicians ignored them - it's that they imposed them in the first place. The fact that they ignored them demonstrates pretty clearly that they knew the 'rules' were pointless and unnecessary.
Imagine a world where every single person is scanned and identified.
That's the world we are getting.
This photo scanning will be used for that the same as the ID checking is going to be used for that. What do people think all this AI compute and datacentres are for?
You might be thinking I'm clever. I can fight this. I can make sure I don't end up in this dataset. No, you can't. They'll get you with ML. You just have to pop up enough times. Old photos, photos already on devices, exif data, walk past a ring doorbell, endless ways they can see you. Then they start hooking this up with cellular comms (and billing data) and messenger records. Maybe a bit of CCTV (did you tap in for that public transport? Thank you) for good measure. Pass it all to that compute and it'll find a match. Government ID's, council tax, tax records, bank records, benefit records, medical records, school records for your kids if you have them. Police scanning at shopping centres, protests, the use of mobile stingers. The list is endless.
They will get your face scan and your ID and unless you are going to live in a cabin in the words off grid there is nothing you can do about it. That VPN isn't going to help you other than to hide what you do online for now.
I've been saying this for years. The slow sleepwalk into a dystopian nightmare began a long time ago and now it's picking up the pace. If they keep doing it slow enough they can manage the pushback. Palantir are the public face but who is really holding all the cards?
40% of Android users use unsupported versions of Android that don't receive OS updates. So it's impossible to push out this new feature to everyone. Anyone who doesn't want to play ball will just not install the update. You won't be able to block them without blocking all those users who don't have a supported OS.
Google will have to reopen their support for all previous versions and put a lot of time and money into making sure all those previous versions work with the new code. You can't cut off 40% of Android phone users from the internet without some major court cases for compensation.
This idea from politicians who have not thought through the implications is obvious from people who think that disappearing messages is OK for them, but should be banned for everyone else.
40% of Android users use unsupported versions of Android that don't receive OS updates. So it's impossible to push out this new feature to everyone. Anyone who doesn't want to play ball will just not install the update. You won't be able to block them without blocking all those users who don't have a supported OS.
It's fine. When those 40% try to connect to the Internet, they won't have the DigitalIDiot app, and thus won't be allowed to connect. Simple. For the pron scanning to work, all communications will have to be pushed through a CloudFlare-style proxy anyway. Plus that would probably be spun as a security benefit with unpatched devices being forced offline. Force MS, Apple & AlphaGoo onboard with the threat of billions in fines and they'll comply with pushing this exciting new app & features. And all those pesky users who use *nix on Pi's will also have to figure out how to comply.
This idea from politicians who have not thought through the implications is obvious from people who think that disappearing messages is OK for them, but should be banned for everyone else.
Such is politics. They've thought through their desire to surveil everything we do online. They'll no doubt carve out exemptions for themselves, just as they have under the 'Snoopers Charter'. On the plus side, that also means politicians might have to use official government approved devices & not their own gadgets and apps that get compromised.
It would be relatively easy for the government to mandate all ISP's to include some form of authentication when a device connects to the internet and without that authentication you can't connect. They could even mandate it after connection and before the internet which means even on wifi you have to authenticate.
I see this all the time where people say government are dumb or government hasn't thought this through. They have. The have thought it through with their advisors more than you or I ever could. Do you really think they had never heard of VPN's and no one mentioned them?
Think of this way. Lets say they go straight for the jugular with all the controls. People will be up in arms and no one will accept them. If you use a controlled measured and phased process they won't have that problem.
Let's put ID on 18+ websites for the kiddies. Oh no, the kiddies are using VPN's. Whatever shall we do to stop that? We can't block VPN's but what we can do is get google and apple to do it for us and put the ID on the phone or tablet. If they had started off with we are going to force you to supply ID to Android and Apple when you buy a phone to prove your identity and/or scan your face what do you think the reaction would have been? Two words with the initials F and O. What's the reaction going to be now for the majority? Well, they can't stop VPN's so this is the best way to protect the kiddies.
Likewise. Let's protect kiddies on messenger programs and stop terrorists by giving us access. No sir, you are not having that because you can't have that and we won't give up that freedom. Ok, we'll scan the pictures the kiddies attach to protect them from nudes. Most people will just accept that because hey I'm not sending nude pictures. Little do they know the future implications. For government having apps on everyone's phones is 100x better than accessing just the messages because it will give them the messages as well.
So yeah those 40% of android users won't get away from this and they'll have no one to sue because their outdated unsupported device no longer works on the internet.
@Andy3
Look up NSO Pegasus or Paragon Graphite.
If you are connected to the internet, people like the NSA or GCHQ can put these tools on any end point
and read everything on that endpoint.
On the other hand, if your end point (phone, laptop, PC) is OFF THE NETWORK (i.e. air-gapped) then
only you can see your own content.
You might like to consider a strategy where your end point is only on the network for those occasions
where you need to communicate......otherwise OFF THE NETWORK. Not perfect, but a good start!
When we first put out the internet to the everyone in USAF (around 1996), it's was horrible. We had to put up some scanners to see the traffic going across the net. What was seen could not be unseen. After that, we had one guy that was the 'person' that had to review that crap. He was not in a good way, it put a lot of stress on him (children, horses, rape, the whole shebang). . Anyway, we had a team of people that would march into the 'guys' office and state the dreaded words, "STEP AWAY FROM THE KEYBOARD". After they pulled their pants up, we'd confiscate the PC and turn it over to OSI for investigation. These people were seasoned government workers. They instantly lost their security clearances and their jobs they had for decades. It was not what I had envisioned for deploying the internet to everyone in the USAF. Just thought I'd put this out there as it's a problem we've been fighting for a long time. But putting apps on phones, NOPE, not going to do it. Privacy has limits before it's not called PRIVACY anymore.
People who don't understand what they're asking shouldn't be trying to push something like this on the public.
Not a single child is going to be protected by this, it's just going to be used as a mass-surveilance tool.
Think of the children..... I'm getting SO tired of hearing this braindead argument.
it's an actual LEGAL child porn collection.
Cabinet Minister and the PM will have access to "an archive" of whats being collected/banned so they can "review" the law every now and again.
Basically a full-on system for child porn that MPs can't be arrested over. THATS its entire purpose.
How I wish that wasn't a joke, but they will "regularly review" what the system is preventing. With their pants around their ankles.
There have already been serious rumors that the PM and several cabinet ministers are FAR FAR more involved with Epstein and pals than has gone public.
When Starmer came to power, the first thing he did was order a "clear-out" of a vast number of national security documents.........
Under these rule there will be "collection" of images kept in an "archive" (for reference) that MPs and Specifically Government Cabinet Ministers will have access to. The claim is so they can "review" the law and what images are being collected......
Filtered by AI, this is basically building a child porn collection as this makes it easier for Starmer to LEGALLY have access to child porn.
I wish that was a joke.
> Signal argues that the proposed technology could at some point be repurposed to enable state-sponsored surveillance of all citizens' comms, or used as a mass censorship tool.
What do you mean could :o
The only ray of hope here is that the UK government has already demonstrated its incredible competence vacuum when it tried to bring out a covid-19 tracking app. The app was a monster, sucking power at a huge rate and flattening the batteries of phones in mere hours. If the government think that they're going to make a pattern-matching system that does what it is supposed to do AND which doesn't absolutely clobber the device battery life then they're sadly deluded.
Sad, delusional and pretty crap seem to be a constant theme with the current government. Perhaps working out how not to stall the economy would be a better use of their time, as opposed to trying to foist a system that will create huge numbers of false positives and no benefit at all onto an unwilling public.
"That is why I'm making sure Britain is the first country in the world to make it impossible for children to take, share or view nude images" is a very odd thing to say.
Someone who, when they think about the safety of children, starts thinking about children taking, distributing and viewing nude images and focuses on that only, clearly must *not* shape any policy that impacts children.
While such activities can be harmful to children (but not always, after all, on viewing some ancient artworks, they could come across one with cherubs that *gasp* are almost undressed, which obviously is not harmful) - such is a minor harm to children and realistically, only parents are capable of addressing that harm in a acceptable way.
Meanwhile, major harms that impact children aren't being addressed - for example how children have no privacy from big tech or the government is a far worse problem, that is far more harmful.
Rather, the goal is to make such major harms are being made 1000x worse!
Please, will UK citizens step up and defend their countries children, by booting big tech out and voting out every last member of the government who support such malicious policies (but that won't happen).
vote the MPs supporting it out of office. Tell the new ones that they have a job because the last guy was pushing mass surveillance.
Not sure why Britons are so concerned though, considering you allowed your gummit to install more surveillance cameras than your nation has citizens. Where can a man in Jolly Old England stand to scratch his balls these days, without a three angle camera shot recording it for posterity?
The bottom line (as we all know) is that no government can be trusted - especially when there are shadow governments like in the UK where the permanent public service is the real government. That is what George Orwell warned the world about decades ago. The shadow government is undemocratic and unaccountable. And like all of the other despotic regimes in history, they are a permanent fixture that can only be removed by violent civil war. They are the very last people on planet Earth that should be allowed to see into any citizen's personal data. We need to cancel this sinister evil.
… and yet this nonsense idea is being taken seriously?
we can’t stop a crime wave of theft in supermarkets.
we can’t control our borders properly.
we can’t do government IT projects on time and budget and effectively.
the list goes on…
yet people expect this government to convince big tech, big american tech, to facilitate device scanning on all mobile phones?
it isn’t going to happen so just calm down
Next stop, the church texting you that you are only allowed to do it in the 'missionary position'. America is in a crisis right now fighting Evangelical Christians (right wing fanatics), and we're just a couple of steps away on this one. DOJ/3 LETTERS (MAGA ARM of Politics) are really pushing local surveillance now. This is what happens government and religion get together. It's fascism all day every day.
