IEA Director of Public Policy and Communications Matthew Lesh has been quoted in The Epoch Times discussing the threat posed by the Online Safety Bill to privacy and encryption.

Matthew said:

“Once you cut encryption for one purpose encryption is pretty much over, you are creating a surveillance system that could be used for other purposes,

“There’s no way that [tech companies] are going to undermine their service for global users just in order to keep UK regulators happy—that sets a terrible global precedent.

“Even if the UK might be doing it for the best possible reasons, it sets very concerning precedents for private communications all over the world.

“And there’s many people in conflict zones, there’s social activists who rely on private communications.

“We don’t want to set a precedent that governments are happy to trample on that.”

Read the full article here.