Chike and Maomao solve mysteries

Journalists who interview other journalists about technology related legislation that threatens everyone’s right to digital privacy are going to get bitten in the ass when they realise that they, their whistleblowers and confidential sources will be forced to verify their real identities before they can communicate privately. The British government is trying to outlaw online anonymity under the false pretext of child safety. None of this has anything to do with protecting children. I advised John Carr and the British government in 2012 during the first parliamentary inquiry into online child safety. He was the biggest lobbyist behind this agenda, yet he doesn’t know the first thing about the legislation he advocated. I’ve been an expert in online child safety, content classification and moderation since 1996. I don’t know anyone else who started that early and went on to spend decades founding open standards and advising governments and organisations including IWF, CEOP, NCMEC and the US DOJ on child exploitation technology and techniques. I’m one of the two people who invented the very concept of classifying and labeling user accounts online. As politicians like to say, let me be clear. Not a single politician or child safety advocate I’ve encountered is interested in protecting children. I’m 99.9% confident their real objective is to use child safety as an excuse to force compulsory identity verification on entire populations. This is the opinion of every technical expert you’ll find. More than 25 countries now claim child safety is a top priority, judging by their legislative proposals, daily announcements and media coverage. Yet they continue to push identity verification instead of educating parents about the effective parental controls already built into smartphones. People are already censoring themselves for fear of being investigated, arrested or banned for expressing their opinions in the UK. Compulsory identity verification will make that worse because everything people read, write and share online, and everyone they communicate with, will be linked to their real identities. When you get banned, your real name gets blacklisted. You won’t be able to create a new account under a different email address. What more does the government have to do before journalists start interviewing technical experts who can explain the consequences and properly inform the public? If compulsory identity checks on services like eBay and Vinted aren’t already making journalists’ skin crawl, where exactly do they draw the line?

I'm working on a technical analysis to expose how The Telegraph is selling compulsory phone surveillance as child protection on behalf of the British Government. Charles Hymas reads more like a government mouthpiece than a journalist. A glance through his Telegraph articles reveals a pattern of amplifying government announcements without challenging their technical claims or explaining the consequences so Telegraph readers can be better informed. What makes this especially dangerous is what he fails to explain to his own readers. The compulsory surveillance and identity verification capabilities being proposed threaten the digital privacy and anonymity that investigative journalists, their confidential sources and whistleblowers rely on. Hymas appears remarkably unconcerned that the very protections journalism relies on are being dismantled under the pretext of protecting children, despite the serious risks these proposals could introduce for children themselves. Follow my free Substack to be notified when it's published - link in my bio. I'm using it as a research and discussion community, not a traditional newsletter. I'll publish as much of my work here as possible too, because I don't want to force anyone onto a specific platform. I don't get paid to write. My goal is to help people understand what governments and tech companies are actually doing, so journalists, lawyers, policymakers and others in positions of influence have the technical evidence they need to challenge colleagues who are pushing through laws that will effectively outlaw online anonymity. Everyone's civil liberties is at stake. When people are forced to identify themselves before they're granted permission to use basic apps and services like their camera phone, they lose the freedom to speak, investigate and share information anonymously. The British government is also attacking end-to-end encryption by demanding that private images and communications be inspected before they're encrypted or after they're decrypted. That undermines the entire purpose of end to end encryption. This is dangerous. The UK is on fire when it comes to digital privacy and personal safety when using digital devices.