Once again there are indications the UK government intends to use the law to lean on encryption. A report in The Sun this week quoted a Conservative minister saying that should the government be re-elected, which polls suggest it will, it will move quickly to compel social media firms to hand over decrypted data.
Techcrunch: Could the UK be about to break end-to-end encryption? »
British Prime Minister Theresa May speaks to the media outside her official residence, 10 Downing Street in London.
British politician Theresa May – yes, the same one that wants to revive fox hunting – intends to introduce new, controversial regulations on the way the internet works.
A Twitter status update box. (Photo: Andy Melton)
Since Wednesday, Twitter has been sending out emails and notifications to its over 300 million monthly users to inform them of changes to their privacy policy.
The new policy, which goes into effect on June 18, includes changes to data collection, data sharing, and digital advertising. The policy is being run on an ‘opt-out’ basis, meaning that if users do not actively change their settings, these policies will automatically be applied to their accounts.
(ANTIMEDIA) Since Wednesday, Twitter has been sending out emails and notifications to its over 300 million monthly users to inform them of changes to their privacy policy.
The new policy, which goes into effect on June 18, includes changes to data collection, data sharing, and digital advertising. The policy is being run on an ‘opt-out’ basis, meaning that if users do not actively change their settings, these policies will automatically be applied to their accounts.
“Some people say that it is not for government to regulate when it comes to technology and the internet,” it states. “We disagree.”
The Independent: Theresa May to Crete New Internet that would be Controlled and Regulated by Government »
Even worse, profiling and similar techniques are increasingly used not just to classify and understand people, but also to make decisions that have far-reaching consequences, from credit to housing, welfare and employment. Intelligent CCTV software automatically flags “suspicious behaviour”, intelligence agencies predict internet users’ citizenship to decide they are foreign (fair game) or domestic (usually not fair game), and the judicial system claims to be able to predicts future criminals.
UK Prime Minister and noted authoritarian Theresa May has promised that if she wins the upcoming general election, her party will abolish internet access in the UK, replacing it with a government-monitored internet where privacy tools are banned and online services will be required to vet all user-supplied content for compliance with rules about pornography, political speech, copyright compliance and so on — and search engines will have to employ special British rules to exclude banned material from their search results.
Big data has a potential to improve society – much like electricity or antibiotics. From health care and education to urban planning and protecting the environment, the applications of big data are remarkable. However, big data comes with big negative impacts. Big data can be used – by both advertisers and government agencies – to violate privacy. The power of big data can be exploited to monitor every single detail of people’s activities globally.
In 2015, the Federal Communications Commission passed a set of Internet privacy and net neutrality rules. The rules were then eliminated by Congress two months ago before they ever went into effect. Net neutrality ideologues are lamenting this new action, saying access to the Internet is a right and should be treated as a public utility. But what would that mean?
