During a podcast appearance following his meeting with Sir Keir Starmer at the White House, President Trump was asked for his impressions of the UK’s Prime Minister. “A different type” to Boris Johnson, he observed – surely one of the greatest compliments any politician could hope to receive. Then, in characteristic Trumpian fashion, he flipped the interview dynamic and began quizzing the host instead.
The interviewer, having already made a few pointed remarks about Starmer’s adenoidal vocal delivery (“Beautiful voice; beautiful, the whole thing,” Trump interjects, drily), soon steered the conversation towards a more serious issue: Starmer’s claim that Britain would have free speech “for a very, very long time”. A bold assertion given his Government’s dismal record on the issue, of course, particularly its recent attempt to force Apple to create a global encryption backdoor, handing UK law enforcement access to user data worldwide.
“We told them, you can’t do this,” Trump said. “It’s incredible. It’s something you hear about in China.”
As first reported by the Washington Post last month, UK Home Secretary Yvette Cooper issued the legally binding order in the form of a Technical Capability Notice (TCN). Unlike a traditional data request, a TCN does not demand access to specific user information. Instead, it compels a company to create the means for the Government to access it in the future. In this case, it could mean dismantling Apple’s end-to-end encryption protections, which are currently so robust that even Apple itself cannot bypass them. That encryption is what ensures our messages, photos, files and personal data remain private.
The implications of this extend far beyond Britain. If Apple caves to the demands of the UK government, other governments, including authoritarian regimes like Russian, Iran and China, will demand the same access. Once a backdoor exists, Apple will no longer be able to say it lacks the ability to decrypt the data of its customers. It will merely be a question of who gets access.
In other words, the US administration is right to be alarmed. If encryption backdoors become the norm, the right to communicate securely, without fear of surveillance or reprisal, will be permanently undermined. This dangerous overreach, issued under the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 (dubbed a ‘Snooper’s Charter’ by civil liberties groups), sets a precedent that should concern anyone who values privacy and free expression. Whatever one thinks of the 47th President of the United States of America, his comparison of Britain to China in this respect is hardly far-fetched. If governments can compel tech companies to break encryption, digital privacy risks becoming a privilege reserved for the ideologically compliant – not an inalienable right.
You can listen to a clip of Trump’s podcast here – it’s beautiful; beautiful, the whole thing.
Dr Frederick Attenborough is the Executive Director of Communications and Research at the Free Speech Union.
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If Apple caves to the demands of the UK government, other governments, including authoritarian regimes like Russian, Iran and China, will demand the same access.
It is UK being the authoritarian regime!
There is no suggestion Russia, Iran and China are demanding the same of Apple, just UK! That makes us the most tyrannical nation of all.
Obviously we don’t know if Apple have been served similar Technical Capability Notices by China or any other state. It would almost certainly be illegal for them to reveal that… We know France arrested the head of Telegram recently after tricking him with a supposed meeting with Macron.
Looking at this another way around, has the UK issued a similar demand to any other tech firms? Meta? Amazon? X? Signal? Proton Mail? Telegram?
It did try to censor Rumble after Russell Brand was in the Channel Four documentary where various complainants made accusations. Rumble is also banned in France I believe,
‘authoritarian regimes….’
Like the one I lived through in the UK for 3 years?
The one that arrests you for silent prayers, or saying penises indicate a man?
Fascinating.
Indeed.
Having lived in probably the softest of the communist countries for the first 24 years of my life and therefore having some first hand experience I can categorically state that the UK is currently as authoritarian as the country of my birth was.
In some ways it’s worse. The communists lied day and night but even they didn’t go as far as saying that a man can become a woman.
Um, no. Digital privacy becomes something which you’ll assume you have until the officers of the state come knocking on your door – whatever your ideology. Digital privacy will become a privilege asserted by those willing to break the law and encrypt stuff and to hell with what the state demands.
The UK doesn’t like free speech.
Many Russian websites are blocked in the UK.
If you want to read, see or hear Western geopolitical analysts giving their unbiased opinions, which is quite often the opposite of what the msm are saying, you have to use a VPN.
The UK government are afraid of the truth.
Yup, rt.com still blocked here. I didn’t think we were at war with Russia. It’s not blocked in the Dominican Republic – probably very soon the entire population of the DR will turn into Putin Stooges
Or well informed Putin supporters.
Starmer visited China in his first few weeks to kiss the CCP ring.
Lammy followed shortly afterwards.
Note that EVERYTHING they have done in power benefits China.
Ask yourself why.
Did Mr Starmer actually say ‘Britain would have free speech “for a very, very long time”’? Hilarious. Britain has never had free speech and it certainly does not have it now. There is mass suppression of views on a grand scale but also amplification of the specific views of the establishment. This insidious phenomenon pervades every aspect of current British society.
The British Establishment WANTS a Chinese-style system in place: surveillance, social credit system and suppression of dissent.