This is not the first time.
2023: UK passes the Online Safety Bill. Signal threatens to leave. Meta threatens to pull WhatsApp. the government backs down.
2026: same government, new prime minister, same bill, different name. Keir Starmer gives Apple and Google 3 months to scan every device in the country or face criminal charges against their executives.
Signal's president Meredith Whittaker, on the BBC, yesterday:
"we would absolutely 100% walk rather than ever undermine the trust that people place in us."
not a maybe. 100%.
UK government ministers use Signal.
civil servants use Signal.
law enforcement officers use Signal.
the people writing the law that would break encryption use the app whose encryption they are trying to break. for their own sensitive communications.
they want a backdoor in your Signal.
not theirs.
and one more thing. this doesn't stay in the UK. Australia already has encryption-weakening laws. the EU has been debating the same measures. the Five Eyes alliance has pushed for backdoors for years. France tried it last year. Sweden is next.
every country watching this fight will use the outcome to justify their own demands.
what happens in London doesn't stay in London.
JUST IN: President of messaging app Signal threatens to pull service from the UK over government regulation.