25 years of crypto wars and privacy tussles – where next?
November 30, 2023Computer Laboratory
Cambridge
Man is born free, as Marx told us, but is everywhere in chains. The Internet promised freedom but is being turned into a tool of surveillance and control.
The Foundation for Information Policy Research was launched in 1998 during 'Crypto War 1' in the run-up to the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act. After a quarter century, the crypto wars are back with the CSAR in the European Parliament and the Online Safety Act in the UK; privacy tussles extend from from medical privacy to AI regulation. It's time to take stock and discuss what the past can teach and what the future might hold.
FIPR has worked on many topics around privacy, digital rights and cybercrime. Our first decade saw a lot of work on surveillance and export control laws, as well as the foundation, twenty years ago, of EDRi. Landmark publications from our second decade were discussed at our 20th anniversary; they include reports on Children's Databases and the Database State, which became coalition government policy, and advice on Taking down websites to prevent crime that the current government ignored when framing its recent Online Safety Bill. Both FIPR and EDRi have put a lot of effort over the last few years into pushing back on government attempts to mandate client-side scanning. So what's changed, what's stayed the same, and what's next?
16:00 Welcome
Organised by The Foundation for Information Policy Research.
If you're not a member of FIPR, please Register Here so we know how many people to cater for.
The event was blogged here.
Hashtag #FIPR2023