Don’t Scan Me!
The Online Safety Act’s spy clause outsources surveillance to messaging apps.
A ‘spy clause‘ in the Online Safety Act introduced powers to scan our private messages. Clause 122 of the Act empowers Ofcom to issue notices to providers of messaging services. These notices require them to develop and deploy software that will scan your phone for illicit material.
Message scanning is an expansion of mass surveillance. Millions of people use these services daily. Scanning phone messages breaks the promise of confidentiality and undermines our security.
This spy clause unlocks the security measures built into your phone. Some providers of end-to-end encrypted messaging such as Signal and WhatsApp have said they will withdraw their service from the UK, rather than undermine security if Ofcom decides to make use of these powers.
Join our campaign
Support our campaign to prevent client-side scanning from compromising your privacy.
Take ActionTHE SPY CLAUSE
If the securocrats get their way, they will turn your phone into a spy in your pocket. They will scan your private messages for illicit content without judicial oversight. There is a scary parallel here with the surveillance society created in places like China. If we accept the principle of mass surveillance of our private messages, it opens the door to creeping authoritarianism.
Online Safety Bill: Civil society organisations urge UK to protect global digital security and safeguard private communication
Open letter to the UK government from over 80 national and international civil society organisations, academics and cyberexperts raising concerns about the serious threat to the security of private and encrypted messaging posed by the Online Safety Bill.
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Contents
About Open Rights Group 2
Addressing automated, arbitrary algorithmic censorship 2
Our concerns and recommendations 2
Summary 3
Automated censorship and arbitrary restrictions 4
Content moderation systems 5
Arbitrary restrictions 6
Why prevent has a special meaning (prior restraint) 9
Hands, face, age-gate 9
Ministerial powers to interfere with speech 10
Chat controls, to do lists and the spy in the your pocket 11
User Dis- Empowerment 13
Rights for online speech 13
Procedural safeguards and effective remedies 15
User experiences of restrictive content moderation measures 15
Procedural safeguards against arbitrary take-downs 16
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For immediate release
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