Should the Public Pay Attention to the Letter of the Law Before It's Written Into Law?
Is apathy really the problem, or do we need better political/legislative literacy?
When trying to pass new legislation, bills are often summarized as a list of noble #policy objectives, but none ever lists the societal and technological #risks posed by the legalization of privacy-invasive surveillance.
As a result, bills are often ignored by the public or considered too vague to decipher until they are written into law.
Consider the new UK Online Safety Bill (OSB), whose stated goals fail to indicate that in its current format, the changes would force companies to #spy on their own users, build mechanisms to undermine their own #security and weaken #confidentiality controls with the inevitable effect of stripping legitimate users of their human right to #privacy.
This will of course drive major organizations out of the UK and marginalize its citizens by censoring their activities and blocking their access to secure technologies. It's a slippery slope, and none of it is evident from the official link below.
Click to read referenced article: Online Safety Bill: Commons stages - House of Commons Library (parliament.uk)
This post originally appeared on ClaudiuPopa.com.