The UK Sits Between Two Stools … and Must Pick One

For data, the UK sits between two stools. One is a GDPR-focused viewpoint of the world, and where the citizen has core rights to privacy, consent and security. On the other, we have the other viewpoint where there are too many risks to our society, and where we must break encryption and mass harvest communications. The UK, soon, must decide on which stool it will sit, as it cannot sit on both of these.

The main Cloud service providers in the US, such as Facebook and Google, often now see the world split into two, and where they must be GDPR compliant in some areas of the world, and not in others. It can simply be defined as a US-model for privacy and an EU-one.

The Five Eyes — an intelligence alliance of Australia, US, Canada, UK and New Zealand — see privacy as not absolute, and where the governments want access to encrypted data, communications and devices. As we see in Australia, this alliance is now on a course to put in-place technological, enforcement and legislative measures to enforce their non-absolute security world. While the term “backdoors” has all but disappeared from their media communications, it is likely that these will make up a core part of their focus, especially as the world moves to have nearly all communications encrypted through tunnels.