Signal warns Starmer’s plans for age verification and content scanning risk turning smartphones into surveillance tools

United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s demand that all content on all devices sold or used in the country be scanned for nudity and other harmful content will not protect children. Instead, privacy advocates argue the plan could undermine digital security and expand surveillance beyond its intended goal.

On Monday, Prime Minister Starmer announced that phone manufacturers such as Apple and Google will be given three months to review photos on young people’s phones. He said the goal is to make it impossible for young people to send or receive nude photos.

Tech companies must enable nudity-detection algorithms or other technical solutions on smartphones and tablets to prevent minors from taking or sharing pictures of their genitalia, unless they can prove they are adults.

If the tech companies can’t or won’t comply by September, Prime Minister Starmer will impose legislation.

“Today, I am calling on tech companies operating in this country to introduce vice controls that prevent children from sending and receiving sexually explicit images. Because this is not an impossible challenge. If they choose not to, then we will act, and we will change the law,” Starmer said on Monday at London Tech Week.

However, Signal isn’t happy with the Prime Minister’s plans.

The encrypted messaging platform feels that Starmer is using a “dystopian combination” of age verification and client-side scanning that will put us all at risk.

“Forcing all UK residents to prove their age and/or have all their content scanned, simply to exercise their fundamental right to communicate, is a perilous proposition,” Signal states.

According to the messaging service, this will lead to mass surveillance and government censorship, potentially expanding to all Britons abroad and to other subjects, such as political speech.

“We know from history that once in place, there will be an inevitable authoritarian expansion of the kind of content and people these technologies will be expected to surveil. We also know such tools will be leveraged to automatically report people to government authorities,” Signal continues.

The messaging platform alleges that Starmer’s proposals, designed to keep children safe, will fail and might threaten our civil liberties.

“What the UK government wants instead is invisible surveillance infrastructure, switched on by default and potentially rushed into law under cynical pretexts. All of this with scant care for the actual needs of the children they claim to be protecting or the horrifying and far-ranging consequences that will ensue in practice,” Signal concludes.

The United Kingdom has been working on strict laws for tech companies for some time. Back in 2023, the Online Safety Act came into effect, giving the government more tools to take action against harmful online content aimed at children.