The USSR would have loved to have this level of surveillance that even Orwell couldn’t dream of.
I am the admin of my devices, fuck off Starmer.
Not just the USSR
- https://www.npr.org/2006/01/18/5161811/cointelpro-and-the-history-of-domestic-spying
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO
- https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/blog/domestic-spying/
- https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/60-years-ago-congress-warned-us-about-the-surveillance-state-what-happened/
- https://www.history.com/articles/cia-surveillance-operation-chaos-60s-protest
Authoritarian Island makes another blunder.
Seriously what the hell, this clearly isn’t about helping kids, it is clearly about something far scarier.
The ultimatum comes a month after Jess Phillips quit her post as safeguarding minister claiming that Starmer had failed to introduce changes to halt the ability of children in the UK to take naked images of themselves.
I don’t see the issue with kids being able to take naked photos of themselves? Like I get that the fear is that they will share these with adults exploiting them, but the Online Safety Act already requires platforms to limit sharing images in sensitive contexts (like DMs). You could also just require phones for children to not have cameras, but this isn’t actually about children taking nude images of themselves.
“For too long, people have been told that [children sharing explicit images] is simply the price of modern tech – that nothing could be done. That government is powerless. That parents just have to accept it,” he said.
Just don’t buy you kid a phone? Or just get them a phone plan without data? Parents are anything but powerless.
“That is why today, I am calling on tech companies operating in this country to introduce vice controls that prevent children from sending and receiving sexually explicit images. Because this is not an impossible challenge.
You solution is literally technologically impossible, though. There does not exist, and likely will never exist, an algorithm that can identify explicit images from non-explicit ones with fault tolerances approaching acceptable.
The announcement has been driven by an explosion in child sexual abuse referrals. The UK’s National Crime Agency receives 1,700 referrals every week. Last year nine in 10 child abuse images were generated by children, many of whom had been tricked or blackmailed by abusers they had met on the internet.
These are social issues for which technology alone cannot solve. Tech won’t save us and it can’t govern for you, Mr Starmer.
The proposal is designed to sit alongside the Online Safety Act, which requires companies to have processes for removing material that is illegal or harmful to children.
Bullshit, this literally works against the OSA’s regime. At least with the OS age stuff happening elsewhere, you don’t also have to upload your ID to every website that might host a nipple.
I’m all up for legislation requiring certain standards from system parental controls. My take on the OSA’s age verification regime is that it should just be an API that tells apps/websites if parental controls are enabled. But this is about the most blatant trojan horse I’ve ever seen.
Would have to assume if passed, this would mean graphene OS would have to leave the UK? No way they would implement age verification.
In terms of the actual nuditity detection, my understanding its done locally? Since it would be a fairly small model.
I mean, whoever knows…
The article says:
requiring the protection to be added to all phones and tablets sold in the UK
As long as it isn’t sold preinstalled in the UK (and: specifically on phones and tablets! What is even the definition of a tablet, is a convertible laptop a tablet…), it might or might not remain legal to distribute custom ROMs there?
A grapheneOS user already got banned from playstation because of age verification for using that OS and reported to the police: https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/36134-grapheneos-user-reported-to-authorities-for-using-grapheneos Kier wants to restrict us to Windows and Apple only
This is WILD. They’re not even discussing that “children” may have the same kind of right to privacy as adults.
And by “children” it’s everyone under 18. So 17, 16 ,15 yr olds will all get their photos scanned and they will do their best to prevent them from watching porn 🤣
I supposed it will at least increase tech literacy rates. Installing a VPN isn’t actually that hard and it’s a useful life skill. I fully support labour in there efforts to further incentivise the learning of IT skills.
It’s nothing to do with protecting kids. It’s about having access to communications before they can be encrypted. It is surveillance dressed as concern for kids





