It seems that the UK government care little for our love of emojis, picture sharing and constant communication. Following the initial announcement in the wake of the Paris shootings, David Cameron seems to be moving forward with legislation to stop us sending encrypted messages of any kind. This would mean the end for applications like WhatsApp and Snapchat in the UK, as well as Apple’s iMessage and FaceTime, who also scramble their data. The problem is that such apps prevent security services from monitoring communication, which, in theory, provides criminals with a wicked place to plan their evil deeds. If the ‘snoopers’ charter’ is indeed revived in the coming weeks, we might have to rethink how we keep in touch. “In our country, do we want to allow a means of communication between people which we cannot read?” said the Prime Minister in January. “My answer to that question is no we must not.”
Credits
Photography Jan Persiel