End to end encryption, backdoors and our uniquely inferior constitution

Plans to read your thoughts and dealings have not gone away and are bubbling back up. Put simply, this is because there are still malign people in the offline and online worlds who the authorities want to watch. Regular calls by governments for powers to snoop on communications on-demand continue, maybe with a court order, maybe without, perhaps in secret or with a mere rubber-stamp. It goes as far back as the '90s, when even basic encryption needs were unlawful in France and researchers were subject to criminal investigation (until reality caught up and the modern world was legalised). "What have you got to hide?" is the classic response versus calls for government backdoors into your comms. But it is not that simple, when encryption backdoors could literally make the internet commercially useless and erode democracy. And it is worse for the UK in particular, due to our unusual weaknesses.

This is a fundamental business and political issue about the future of our digital political economy. End to end privacy protects more than just the trust needed for a functioning economy, it protects our very democracy. Our freedom to contract, think, feel and communicate in the offline world has been more than outpaced by use of those civil and economic rights in the digital sphere. Personal and business banking, dealings, reflections, views, complaints, fears and aspirations were always yours alone, in the old days. Instead, today's daily fabric of our lives depends on end to end encryption (E2EE). Your thoughts and companies' records of them are encrypted, with decryption on demand making your soul or business plans snoopable. Encryption backdoors (or equivalent access) wanted by many states would offer worrying potential that would embarrass Big Brother or the Stasi. This is not some extreme "libertarian" point, but a basic democratic and business concern.

As is often written, democracy has been in retreat globally. In common with other challenges, the UK is particularly vulnerable due to its uniquely inferior constitutional system offering unusual authoritarian potential in the wrong hands (in raw legal terms). It was Lord Hailsham in the '70s who described our inferior constitution as an "elective dictatorship." Determined UK government efforts to outlaw protest by statute are one example of our peculiar system where literally anything goes legally, if you get the votes. The only terminal checks on abuses of power that we actually have are 1) cultural norms, 2) whether those norms can be overridden (which is unusually do'able?in law here), 3) whether one can marginalise?protest enough and 4) whether those norms can be reprogrammed eventually (moving the Overton Window). Whatever your views on Brexit, exiting the EU also means that we no longer have the external legal obligation to retain the European Convention of Human Rights in UK law. Or even to remain signatories. Pre 1998 incorporation into UK law, London ignored human rights enough to lose cases in the ECHR with depressing frequency. In a world of constant "new normals" and "unprecedented" politics, there are worrying implications for our economy and politics. Even more so, if your right to private thought is successful eroded,

Previously, the 'war on drugs' was the excuse for broadening official access to your inner sanctums, then the 'war on terror'. Those arguments never entirely overcame realities. Now child abuse is being used as a "wedge issue," seeded by a UK taxpayer funded marketing experiment to divide citizens. Deployed with the finest propaganda discipline, by apparently misrepresenting that emotive topic. There are major issues with this "No Place to Hide" campaign, well covered in the media, with the government castigated by the UK Information Commissioner's Office (who is also the UK GDPR enforcer). It goes without saying that child abuse is terrible. But, just as equally, confidentiality campaigners can also know child abuse and understand the objective privacy issues at stake.

There are many big questions around the "exploitation of exploitation" of this government initiative and E2EE generally. What does "end to end" mean, and encryption of which communications? Nearly any digital activity is arguably "communication" in the cloud age. Alec Muffett of the Open Rights Group has done a great job of outlining this broader context in a blog post, following a brief video that is more specifically on E2EE alone.

Thanks to Smashing Security and Thom Langford for highlighting Alec's content.