UN UK: Digital IDs needed to end 'mob rule' online, says security minister

Digital IDs should be brought in to end online anonymity that permits ”mob rule” and lawlessness online, the security minister has said.

Ben Wallace said authentication used by banks could also by employed by internet firms to crack down on bullying and grooming, as he warned that people had to make a choice between “the wild west or a civilised society” online.


He also took aim at the “phoniness” of Silicon Valley billionaires, and called for companies such as WhatsApp to contribute to society over the negative costs of their technology, such as end-to-end encryption.

It comes after Theresa May took another step against tech giants, saying they would be ordered to clamp down on vile attacks against women on their platforms.


The prime minister will target firms such as Facebook and Twitter as she makes the pitch at the G7 summit this weekend, where she will urge social media firms to treat violent misogyny with the same urgency as they do terror threats.

Mr Wallace told The Times: “A lot of the bullying on social media and the grooming is because those people know you cannot identify them.

“It is mob rule on the internet. You shouldn’t be able to hide behind anonymity.”

The former soldier described being part of an uncover investigation into child sex exploitation where they found a children’s chatroom with a 45-year-old man pretending to be a 12-year-old.

He said: “It was like blood in the water with a shark – he was trying to chat up a girl to get her to come and meet him.


“If we’re going to make the internet safer, we’re going to have to do something more about digital identification.”

Suspected incidents on online child sex abuse referred to the Metropolitan Police have soared by 700 per cent since 2014, according to evidence given to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse earlier this year.

Meanwhile, one in five UK women has suffered online abuse or harassment, of which 27 per cent was threats of sexual or physical assault, according to an Amnesty International survey in March.


Mr Wallace called on social media giants to take responsibility for their own technology, as he said the UK was spending hundreds of millions of pounds on coping with the challenges of end-to-end encryption, which makes it harder for the security services to foil terror plots.

He said: “There should be an element of the ‘polluter pays’. You contribute to the cost your technology is engendering.”

Describing Silicon Valley billionaires, he said: “The phoniness irritates me - it’s, ‘I’m a hippy with a beanbag and, oh yes, there is my superyacht’.


“They accuse the state of surveillance and yet they sell my details to make money. We are the lunch, they are the ruthless ones.”

The prime minister has campaigned to rein in tech giants by urging investors to pull funding from irresponsible firms, if they refuse to act on hate-filled content on their platforms.

Speaking ahead of her arrival at the G7 summit, Ms May said: “What is illegal offline is illegal online, and I am calling on world leaders to take serious action to deal with this, just like we are doing in the UK with our commitment to legislate on online harms such as cyberstalking and harassment.

“Online violence against women and girls should not be separated from offline violence, and the technology companies who are making welcome progress in banning and removing extremist content must use the same methods to prioritise tackling this unacceptable and deeply worrying rising trend.”

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...e-security-minister-ben-wallace-a8390841.html

 

[UW 411]

(Speaking ahead of her arrival at the G7 summit) “What is illegal offline is illegal online, and I am calling on world leaders to take serious action to deal with this, just like we are doing in the UK with our commitment to legislate on online harms such as cyberstalking and harassment.

“Online violence against women and girls should not be separated from offline violence, and the technology companies who are making welcome progress in banning and removing extremist content must use the same methods to prioritise tackling this unacceptable and deeply worrying rising trend.”

Righty-ho... Make it about kids and grooming, okay - if you're going to die on a hill, make it an anti-BBC-anti-Saville-kid-ruining hill...

Make it about wiminz and harrasmant and shit? Nah, fam. Nobody wants you and the countless Brit ladies who are both past and present victims of both domestic violence and online stalking after leaving (often lethal or almost lethal) violent relationships will beg to differ. Often the bobbies are on their side.

Countless female victims of IRL and online harassment and constant threats of further violence from offending ex-partners (male and female) are offered nothing but a paltry couple of hundred quid (usually closer to £120-150) in victim compensation and most charges are reduced to basic Battery or at max, a GBH charge if the female victim is lucky. Sentences even for murderers here are lax compared to other countries, but like other countries; minimal crimes get comparatively obscene sentences also.

Restraining orders are so notoriously difficult to obtain against the violent offender in (even severe, long- standing) DV cases, that even 'Victim Support' liaison-type police officers who are present in court on behalf of victims considered too traumatised to attend, have been given a 'Nope' from the judge, often based on the offender moving 'out of district' (specifically bypassing the notion that females may be further stalked and harassed online) - and since they're often social housing tenants, they're kicked out and they move on to the next low-budget shithole borrough - they moved away, no need for a restraining order!

Pay for a non-molestation order, cuck-lady!

"Oi! Oi! Oi! Where's your non-molestation loiscense, M'am?"

Feck off is this anything to do with women (or children, let's be honest!)

Despicuckble.

 

[Aristophanes]

Righty-ho... Make it about kids and grooming, okay - if you're going to die on a hill, make it an anti-BBC-anti-Saville-kid-ruining hill...

To be fair, it was the Tories (especially Thatcher) that shielded both Rolf Harris and Jimmy Saville in 1980s, as well as covered up scandals within their own ranks. It was also during May's tenure as Home Secretary that a dossier with a list of known offenders and terrorists was somehow mysteriously "lost" on a train.

 

[Splendid]

Ask Bill Clinton how this shit worked out. He couldn't do it back in the day when you had to have a fucking phone line to get on the internet and you could have plausibly gotten all prebuilt computer manufacturers online.

 

[AnOminous]

Righty-ho... Make it about kids and grooming, okay - if you're going to die on a hill, make it an anti-BBC-anti-Saville-kid-ruining hill...

Make it about wiminz and harrasmant and shit? Nah, fam. Nobody wants you and the countless Brit ladies who are both past and present victims of both domestic violence and online stalking after leaving (often lethal or almost lethal) violent relationships will beg to differ. Often the bobbies are on their side.

Countless female victims of IRL and online harassment and constant threats of further violence from offending ex-partners (male and female) are offered nothing but a paltry couple of hundred quid (usually closer to £120-150) in victim compensation and most charges are reduced to basic Battery or at max, a GBH charge if the female victim is lucky. Sentences even for murderers here are lax compared to other countries, but like other countries; minimal crimes get comparatively obscene sentences also.

Restraining orders are so notoriously difficult to obtain against the violent offender in (even severe, long- standing) DV cases, that even 'Victim Support' liaison-type police officers who are present in court on behalf of victims considered too traumatised to attend, have been given a 'Nope' from the judge, often based on the offender moving 'out of district' (specifically bypassing the notion that females may be further stalked and harassed online) - and since they're often social housing tenants, they're kicked out and they move on to the next low-budget shithole borrough - they moved away, no need for a restraining order!

Pay for a non-molestation order, cuck-lady!

"Oi! Oi! Oi! Where's your non-molestation loiscense, M'am?"

Feck off is this anything to do with women (or children, let's be honest!)

Despicuckble.

So to “protect” women and children, you’ll force them to dox themselves to rapists and pedophiles to use the Internet.

Great idea.

 

[Herbert Hoover]

Lol UK politics makes US politics look calm and sane.

Also that one lady that got all the threats wants people to use their real identities on Facebook and Twitter... which most users already do anyway

 

[idosometimes]

They've been discussing "Digital ID's" in one form or another since the fucking late 90s. With various security ministers and Home Office ministers pontificating on the matter, then usually dropping it when they realise they'd have to build a Great Firewall of China and employ tens of thousands of people to monitor it. Thus something that would likely run up into the billions.

Not necessarily. The proliferation of a few major sites and mobile phones that are connected to an account would make it much easier to create a digital id. The UK could require, by legislation, that Apple, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and others authenticate every user with their real life legal self. Facebook and other "social" logins are already used on most sites. Requiring legal identification to post on UK hosted sites would be very easy. The question would be how it could be enforced outside of UK. They left that Eeyore thing or whatever, so now it is just them. Powerless and alone with no technology to speak of.