La creazione di app come Signal o WhatsApp potrebbe essere “un’attività ostile”, afferma il watchdog britannico

Copying from another thread on this article, for those not reading beyond the headline (or the top of the article):

This is not the Government saying that Signal or WhatsApp are bad or need to be banned. This is the watchdog (here the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation) pointing out that recent laws (from 2023) are overly broad, and might need to be reined in, or at least carefully supervised:

> Some of the powers and offences extend well into the zone of political activity, journalism, protest and day-to-day human activity. However useful, they must be tested against misuse and overreach.

The context is also important – this is specifically about an “unreasonable stop and search at the borders” power, letting law enforcement stop and question people crossing the border who might be involved in state-related “hostile activity” against the UK (similar to the existing power for people who might be involved in terrorism). The review highlights how broad this could be:

> Since hostile activity does not require any knowledge or tasking by a foreign state, the phenomenon of double-ignorance could arise. A person may be engaged in hostile activity if they do something which, unknown to them threatens, national security and which is in the interests of another State, also entirely in the dark.

The watchdog identifies three examples of this, someone developing an app with end-to-end encryption, a lobbyist for a foreign firm, and a journalist with personally embarrassing information about the Prime Minister; each could count as someone “engaged in hostile activity” because it may threaten national security in the interests of another state, even if neither they nor the other state have any idea about it.

The review specifically notes that “a person could be examined on account of their wholly inadvertent and morally blameless conduct” and sets this out as a problem.