we want surveillance but it's all for the children

18 Jun, 2026

Source: Gov UK News Story

Almost immediately this has a feel of having nothing to do with wanting to protect our children and everything to do with wanting more surveillance.

The most frustrating thing is that they'll play people against each other by saying if you oppose this, you clearly stand for not wanting to protect children. Which is the exact way they're going to push this through and take away any sense of digital privacy.

I agree that more can be done to protect our children online, however, it seems there is no responsibility put onto parents to teach their children the importance of online safety as well as implementing things such as parental controls.

That's in no way to excuse big tech when it comes to protection, but if this is about protecting children, why not start with parents?

Quote: Companies must introduce these measures without threatening privacy or collecting any data. The device should simply block harmful content across all apps and services. Over-18s will still be able to view adult content by providing proof of age.

Pretty sure having to provide proof of age requires them collecting data of some kind, not only that but we're supposed to trust that these companies will do this? Or that they've got enough safeguards in place to protect all this data?

If that's true (and if rumours are to be believed ¹) the software they want to use for this age verification is closed-source, now I may not know much about technology, but if you're doing something as predatory as this, surely you could at least have something open-sourced that allows for scrutiny?

Most Brits are okay with this because the education and tools around understanding digital privacy are practically non-existent unless you're willing to spend the time and energy to research it all yourself.

Again, this feels as though they've been given a perfect excuses to implement yet more predatory surveillance and push it through under the guise of a legitimate reason that they have no real interest in solving. I do feel sorry for these children and young people who are being used as pawns in a game.

For instance, if this doesn't work (and it wouldn't shock me if that's what they want), they then have a reason to ask for even further measures.

I have zero trust in anything that not only the current Government, but any other MP currently in the UK does.

I wanted to get away from big tech to be able to keep some semblance of privacy, it seems the UK government are wanting to complete remove that. I understand that true digital privacy went out the window a long time ago, but this feels like such a slippery slope towards complete surveillance.

Which if were honest, is probably the entire aim of the UK Government.

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