Questions for Michelle Donelan
The Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sports gets some questions, which weren't answered.
On the 21st of December 2022, the Right Honourable Michelle Donelan asked the public for questions about the “world-leading” Online Safety Bill, which is curiously being marketed rather misleadingly to the general public and contains several troubling instances where digital rights are being taken away. After sending my email on New Year’s Eve, it appears that neither I, nor the many people who have also sent emails, have received any sort of an answer to our questions.
The Online Safety Bill is scheduled for its third reading on the 17th of January 2022. It is imperative that it is stopped to ensure that innovation and communication on the internet is not stifled by the UK Government now, and other governments in the future.
Here are the questions in that email:
What mechanisms of the Online Safety Bill can be used to target websites hosting content against the Bill in locations known to host such websites, such as the Russian Federation? What mechanisms are in place to prevent bypassing these mechanisms?
Why? Most malicious sites operate in jurisdictions where it can be difficult for even the wealthiest of corporations to take legal action against them for the safety of their users, such as Russia and North Korea. If services covered by the Bill which decide to violate it are based in these countries, it can be difficult to prevent users from accessing these sites.
How will age verification providers provide equal services to all adults, for instance, adults with no form of ID or adults with poor credit history?
Why? A recent move by the UK Government to introduce voter ID has resulted in inconsistent requirements with the Oyster (public transport smartcard for Greater London) card for those over the age of 60 being accepted whilst the equivalent Oyster card for those over the age of 18 not being accepted, despite the similar requirements to obtain these cards. One method to resolve this is to allow verification via credit card - but even this can prove limiting for those with poor credit history and cannot be used for those under the age of 18. Thus, it is important that verification requirements are as broad as possible to not disenfranchise them from internet services.
Platforms which are designed for children frequently include a "no politics" rule. How will this rule be affected under the requirements for Platforms to allow content "specifically intended to contribute to democratic political debate in the United Kingdom or a part or area of the United Kingdom"?
Why? The first article about the Online Safety Bill poses this question. If implemented, it could result in some harm given the range of topics which have been discussed in political debate recently (i.e. abortion rights).
What "other systems and processes" will Ofcom be looking at regarding user-to-user services?
Why? This clause in the bill is broad. Clarification is required.
With the increased use of end-to-end encryption in basic tasks such as web surfing (see bold text below), why is the Government banning end-to-end encryption?
Why? End to end encryption is a strongly debated point of the Bill, with Meta responding that they would rather withdraw WhatsApp from the UK rather than implementing the necessary tools to snoop in the conversations between different people. Using a https website, such as this one, utilises encryption for transferring data between the client and the server. (It is not however, end to end encryption as my question suggested. This is an error on my behalf.)
Read more articles just like this one on the Online Safety Bill.