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UK Lawmakers Propose Mandatory On-Device Surveillance and VPN Age Verification

Posted: Mon Dec 15, 2025 11:05 pm
by Jim Burton
https://reclaimthenet.org/uk-lawmakers- ... rification
Lawmakers in the United Kingdom are proposing amendments to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill that would require nearly all smartphones and tablets to include built-in, unremovable surveillance software.

The proposal appears under a section titled “Action to promote the well-being of children by combating child sexual abuse material (CSAM).”

Re: UK Lawmakers Propose Mandatory On-Device Surveillance and VPN Age Verification

Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2025 12:52 am
by Not Forever
…it will certainly do a lot of good for their psychological health.

I swear that if, when I was a teenager, my parents had been able to monitor anything I did on the internet, I would have killed myself. I already wasn’t in great mental health, but something like that would have destroyed me.

Re: UK Lawmakers Propose Mandatory On-Device Surveillance and VPN Age Verification

Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2025 8:10 am
by BLueRibbon
Not Forever wrote: Tue Dec 16, 2025 12:52 am …it will certainly do a lot of good for their psychological health.

I swear that if, when I was a teenager, my parents had been able to monitor anything I did on the internet, I would have killed myself. I already wasn’t in great mental health, but something like that would have destroyed me.
They don't give a fuck about children. That's just the excuse, as always.

Re: UK Lawmakers Propose Mandatory On-Device Surveillance and VPN Age Verification

Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2025 9:37 am
by CantChainTheSpirit
It's obviously nothing to do with child wellfare, it's just the continued trend towards a police state. Everyone will see that, it's really too obvious, but whether anyone will object is another story since most of the country has lost all hope.

Re: UK Lawmakers Propose Mandatory On-Device Surveillance and VPN Age Verification

Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2025 1:50 pm
by BLueRibbon
I've just taken a look at the proposed amendments.

This is absolutely insane.

Surveillance beyond that found in China, but without the actual benefits of living in a genuinely modern and functional country like China.

The UK is a despicable, dystopian wasteland...

Re: UK Lawmakers Propose Mandatory On-Device Surveillance and VPN Age Verification

Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2025 3:20 pm
by Not Forever
BLueRibbon wrote: Tue Dec 16, 2025 8:10 am They don't give a fuck about children. That's just the excuse, as always.
To me, they genuinely think it’s for people’s well-being.
Let me take another context and talk about my country: I’ve already seen a handful of psychologists supporting the idea that parents, as those responsible for their children, should know what their kids are doing with their phones, and I can easily imagine these same people jumping for joy over a measure like this.

All of this is “backed up” by the anti-social-media rhetoric that has been going on for ten years, if not longer, portraying them as the cause of all the problems affecting young people.

If we put these two things together, these proposals would exist even if pedophiles didn’t exist, even if people remained asexual until they were thirty.

And I find all of this so damn irritating.

Re: UK Lawmakers Propose Mandatory On-Device Surveillance and VPN Age Verification

Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2025 11:16 pm
by Learning to undeny
Not Forever wrote: Tue Dec 16, 2025 3:20 pm All of this is “backed up” by the anti-social-media rhetoric that has been going on for ten years, if not longer, portraying them as the cause of all the problems affecting young people.
I can tell that child protection is only the envelope for controlling people, but as someone who experienced the transition to smartphones at a young age, I'm sure they cause or worsen mental health problems. They got us interested in the internet when it was more humane and varied, and now that we are hooked and need it to even work, they are turning it into a dystopian place, so to speak. So much cheap entertainment and so little free speech.