Category: Privacy
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Guilty Until Verified Adult: The EU KIDS Act and the Anatomy of a Con
There is a special class of legislation that announces its own virtue so loudly that one is tempted, before examining a single clause, to ask what it hopes we won’t notice. The European Union’s proposed KIDS Act — a title chosen, one presumes, with the same cynical tenderness that once gave us the PATRIOT Act…
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Do You Trust Me?
“Do you trust me?” So began a former manager of mine during the ritualised humiliation we call a performance review. It was, to put it mildly, a discomfiting inquiry from a man whose own breaches of confidence had already rendered the term meaningless between us. But the discomfort runs deeper still, for it presupposes equality…
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How Europe is Betraying Its Own Values
A curious spectre is haunting Europe, though it is not socialism this time; it is the creeping, bureaucratic death of liberty. Across the continent, our political class is flirting with a proposal so flagrantly absurd and authoritarian that one almost wonders if they have read a history book: the mandatory scanning of every private message,…
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An end to online privacy
There’s something strange going on in Europe. While we have some of the strongest privacy laws in the world, while we fine companies for violating user rights all while considering the most draconian surveillance laws imaginable. Again, the EU is considering a mass surveillance law that, if implemented, will basically put an end to online…
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Abolish privacy
Sometimes you have one of those “What the hell did I just read?” moments. One of those moments for me was earlier this week when someone shared the manifesto “Abolish privacy” with me. People who read my blog, know that I have pretty strong opinions on privacy and I have addressed the topic here many…
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Fight CSAM, destroy privacy
Last year in May, the European Commission proposed new rules to eradicate CSAM, Child Sexual Abuse Material. The sexual abuse of children is a heinous crime and profiting from such material is even worse. It is important to take effective measures against creating and spreading of such material via the internet. The new EC proposal…