This weekend it emerged in the Mail on Sunday that the Prime Minister’s phone number, as well as the numbers, passwords and personal email addresses of much of the cabinet, are available on the internet to anybody for £6.49. They’re made accessible by a website allowing users to search through hacked data leaks with ease. A potential threat to national security…

With the mobile phone numbers of half the cabinet in the public domain, Guido is amused to see the Tories taking the issue more seriously at their conference, with new environmentally friendly paper lanyards being sponsored by a “world beating… quantum-safe cyber security” company – Arqit. They claim to be “keeping safe the data of our governments”. We’re in good hands…

Guido can also reveal that the vast majority of MPs have similar information traces on the site. The passwords available to view are almost universally insecure, often simply comprising lower-case plain text or respective constituency names. This all comes despite parliamentary authorities splurging taxpayer funds on cyber-security, with the head of the parliamentary digital service earning £175,000 a year. The information wouldn’t even be difficult to hide from public view, entries can be removed within three clicks…

Matt Hancock has become the first MP to join the metaverse. Since stepping down as Health Secretary the lover boy has picked up the baton of some niche political issues, not least the complementary causes of cryptocurrency and assisted dying. According to the press release, Hancock is now engaging with the Californian virtual reality platform as he “believes that the Metaverse should be open and free”. It’s a generous hairline…

The platform last made news in Westminster when Nick Clegg agreed to be interviewed by the FT in/on it. Hancock and Clegg in the Metaverse together – Dante only wrote about the circles of hell, we get to be immersed in them…

UPDATE: Matt Hancock is now not entering the Metaverse. According to tech reporter Chris Stokel-Walker, despite the press release announcing the move explicitly saying “Matt Hancock Enters the Metaverse – revealing his avatar”, she is told there have been some crossed wires, and this is both not the case nor is it an avatar of Matt Hancock. Fun’s over guys…

Bad news for just about everybody working in SW1: WhatsApp CEO Will Cathcart has warned the app may be pulled from the UK entirely if the Online Safety Bill reaches the statute books. As if this bill needed any more reasons to be scrapped…

Speaking on the BBC’s Tech Tent podcast, Cathcart slammed the bill for an amendment which would force WhatsApp and other tech companies to make their “best endeavours” to use new technology to flag inappropriate and abusive content, essentially by snooping on users’ private conversations. As Cathcart puts it, “what’s being proposed is that […] we read everyone’s messages”.

Essentially, the bill would give Ofcom the power to compel companies to abandon end-to-end encryption. Like the Free Speech Union points out, this is like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut: when the UK’s own Information Commissioner’s Office is saying this sort of thing is a bad idea, maybe it needs rethinking. First the Bill gives Big Tech the power to censor online content, now it wants them to create back door keys to everyone’s private messages…

The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport  has finally laid out the full details of how it plans to kill off the annoying cookie banners on web browsers. Co-conspirators will know this has been a longstanding campaign of Guido’s – a small, yet meaningful test of the UK’s regulatory sovereignty after Brexit. Switching to an “opt-out” model, rather than blasting users repeatedly with pointless pop-ups, was obviously a more elegant solution. Turns out the government agrees.

Having trailed the move in the Queen’s Speech, and now following a consultation, DCMS has explained how it plans to repeal the Cookie Law for good:

“…the government intends to legislate to remove the need for websites to display cookie banners to UK residents. In the immediate term, the government will permit cookies (and similar technologies) to be placed on a user’s device without explicit consent, for a small number of other non-intrusive purposes. These changes will apply not only to websites but connected technology, including apps on smartphones, tablets, smart TVs or other connected devices.

In the future, the government intends to move to an opt-out model of consent for cookies placed by websites. In practice, this would mean cookies could be set without seeking consent, but the website must give the web user clear information about how to opt out. This would allow the government to realise its ambition to improve the user experience and remove the need for unnecessary cookie consent banners. The opt-out model would not apply to websites likely to be accessed by children.”

The move will be put forward as part of the planned Data Reform Bill, which promises a “clampdown on bureaucracy, red tape and pointless paperwork”. The bill will also remove the need for smaller businesses to have data protection officers, and whack up fines for spam callers and nuisance texts. Finally…

Co-conspirators will be familiar with Guido’s longstanding test of whether the government is really committed to diverging from the over-regulation of the EU: do they abolish the endless online pop-up banners reminding users that websites will use cookies to store information about them. The banners are both obvious and tedious – we all immediately click yes, yet they pop up constantly as we surf the web. A typical, pointless EU directive.

Despite plenty of lip service from the likes of Oliver Dowden, the pop-ups persist. Today, however, the cookie may finally crumble. Guido understands the Queen’s speech will contain an explicit promise to end the annoying, time-wasting requirement for cookie box-ticking via the new Data Reform Bill. The process will be streamlined, and everyone will save a few precious seconds of their day – at long last. Brexit was worth it.

Priti Patel and Nadine Dorries have reportedly written to the Cabinet arguing that sweeping new powers are required to force internet companies to monitor for “legal but harmful” user content, something that is dangerously vague and intrusive.

Matthew Lesh, of the Institute of Economic Affairs, is right when he says

“The Online Safety Bill is going from bad to worse. The Home Office demand for social media companies to proactively monitor legal speech is a recipe for censorship on an industrial scale. It will mean that Meta (Facebook) and Google will be required to read private messages between consenting adults. This is deeply disturbing and will result in a less safe and free internet. The state should not be requiring monitoring and the removal of legal speech. These duties will also impose huge costs on start-ups and smaller companies, deterring tech investment and solidifying Big Tech dominance.”

During the pandemic Big Tech has run riot stifling legitimate debate on the grounds of public health concerns, if this continues and spreads into general censorship it will be disastrous. The problem is politicians generally are so fed up with the abuse they get on social media they are angry enough to overturn the widely accepted free speech norms of the free world for a more authoritarian approach.

Everyone agrees monitoring for illegal content like child sexual exploitation is a desirable priority. Monitoring legal content that might vaguely be harmful is entirely different and the Home Office is wrong to deliberately conflate the issues. We would be on a slippery slope to laws protecting the “dignity of the state” and stifling criticism of politicians. In many authoritarian countries insulting government officials is an offence. It is not unimaginable that in the near future Jolyon Maugham would be organising a fundraiser seeking to bring a case against Guido for “harming” Prime Minister Starmer if this legislation goes through…