UK Government Watch

The UK Government's Department for Science, Innovation, Technology and Censorship has called for evidence to inform the final recommendations of its 'Independent' Pornography Review. The government writes:

The government wants to ensure that any legislation and regulation operates appropriately for all pornographic content, and that the criminal justice system have the tools they need to respond to online illegal pornographic material, and exploitation and abuse in the industry.

The Independent Pornography Review involves a comprehensive assessment of the legislation, regulation and enforcement of online and offline pornographic content, and is overseen by Independent Lead Reviewer Baroness Gabby Bertin.

The review will take an evidence-based approach to develop a range of recommendations on how to best to achieve the review's objectives:

• understand the prevalence and harmful impact of illegal pornography online, and the impact on viewers of other forms of legal pornography, including emerging themes like AI-generated pornography, and the impact on viewer's attitudes to violence against women and girls;

• assess the public's awareness and understanding of existing regulation and legislation of pornography;

• consider the current rules in place to regulate the pornography industry, comparing online and offline laws;

• determine if law enforcers and the justice system are responding to illegal pornography sufficiently, and if change is needed;

• find out how prevalent human trafficking and exploitation is in the industry, before recommending how to identify and tackle this;

• use this knowledge to set out what more can be done to provide those who need it with guidance on the potential harmful impact of pornography.

To ensure the review's final recommendations are robust, it is important that a broad range of views and evidence are considered. This call for evidence invites:

• members of the public

• the government

• subject matter experts

• organisations

to contribute to the review.

The call for evidence closes on 7 March 2024.

Apple says it will remove services such as FaceTime and iMessage from the UK rather than weaken security if new UK government proposals are made law and acted upon.

The government is seeking to update the Investigatory Powers Act (IPA) 2016. It wants messaging services to clear security features with the Home Office before releasing them to customers. The act lets the Home Office demand security features are disabled, without telling the public. Under the update, this would have to be immediate.

Currently, there has to be a review, there can also be an independent oversight process and a technology company can appeal before taking any action.

WhatsApp and Signal are among the platforms to have opposed a clause in the Online Safety Bill allowing the communications regulator to require companies to install technology to scan for child-abuse material in encrypted messaging apps and other services.

The government has opened an eight-week consultation on the proposed amendments to the IPA. , which already enables the storage of internet browsing records for 12 months and authorises the bulk collection of personal data.

Apple has made a  9 page submission to the current consultation opposing the snooping proposal:

It would not make changes to security features specifically for one country that would weaken a product for all users. Some changes would require issuing a software update so could not be made secretly The proposals constitute a serious and direct threat to data security and information privacy that would affect people outside the UK.