The Online Safety Bill is due to become law in autumn and cleared its final stage in the House of Lords on Wednesday before returning to the commons. Currently, the two most viable tech solutions are to either break the encryption – which would leave a backdoor open to any bad actors who found it or introduce software which scans content on a device. It is called client-side scanning and has been dubbed “the spy in your pocket” by critics. The Internet Watch Foundation – which finds, flags, and removes images and videos of child sexual abuse from the web said that in its opinion it was already technically feasible to scan encrypted messaging systems while preserving privacy. Can technology firms sacrifice child safety over data privacy ?
