Online Safety Act 2023

Government Overreach

The Act has been dubbed one of the most intrusive pieces of digital legislation in modern UK history. Civil liberties group Big Brother Watch calls it "a Frankenstein’s monster of an Act that will set free expression and privacy back decades in this country", according to The Guardian. Mandatory content scanning edges perilously close to the world imagined by George Orwell. With sweeping powers to monitor and remove content, the state and its corporate partners could gain unprecedented oversight of our private lives. The 2016 Investigatory Powers Act showed how surveillance powers tend to expand once granted, fuelling fears that this new law will follow suit.

Threats to Encryption

End-to-end encryption keeps our messages secure, but the Act pressures companies to undermine these protections. Secure messaging provider Signal has even threatened to leave the UK rather than weaken its encryption, and digital rights advocates at Open Rights Group warn that forcing backdoors would harm everyone. Experts from EFF and Privacy International caution that weakening encryption makes everyone less safe, children included.

Data Breach Waiting to Happen

Age verification services often collect passports, selfies and other sensitive data with only vague promises of security. Many contract the checks to overseas firms beyond UK regulation, raising questions about how ethically our information is handled. Their record is patchy: in 2023 the VerifyMyAge service left thousands of documents exposed online and the AgeID system suffered a similar leak in 2022. Critics at Open Rights Group warn that linking our IDs and faces to browsing history could invite blackmail if the data falls into the wrong hands.

The Slippery Slope

Today's scan for harmful content might become tomorrow's scan for political dissent. History shows that once surveillance tools exist, their scope tends to expand. It's not paranoia if the powers are enshrined in law.

Ineffective Protection

Determined youngsters rarely struggle to sidestep filters and age gates. New sites hosting questionable content pop up faster than regulators can block them, often based overseas. Users simply turn to VPNs or proxy services to browse these dodgy corners of the web. Banning VPNs isn't workable—businesses rely on them and there's always another tool. Trying to shut them down just pushes activity onto even more hidden platforms.

Schools and libraries that rely solely on blanket bans quickly end up playing digital whack-a-mole. Block one VPN and another appears. Education campaigns that promote responsible choices consistently show better results. Groups like Internet Matters point to open conversations and digital literacy training as the best way to equip young people.

Burden on Smaller Sites

Industry groups warn the compliance requirements may be trivial for tech giants yet devastating for small community forums and hobby projects. Even with the best intentions, many may simply shut down rather than navigate the bureaucracy.