The government is suggesting that it might ban some Apple security updates. Under the latest plans, tech companies would need to notify the British government before rolling out a security fix but might be refused permission if it blocks a vulnerability that’s being exploited by security services.
i got searching, and i understand your concern, there’s a lot of chatter in EU countries about doing this too
however - it looks like it’s all chatter. i managed to find the specific proposal from the EU that people seem worried about, but it hasn’t got out of council yet. seeing major countries like italy and germany coming out against an E2EE ban, means that i have confidence this proposal wont get past a qualified majority vote. (germany + italy = 31% eu pop, qmv pop threshold of 35% to reject)
on the other hand, we have the UK, which has already demonstrated that, when presented with a seriously stupid choice, it has the capacity to actually take that bad choice. the Online Safety Bill is real, it’s in UK parliament now, will likely pass, and it will start hurting us by the end of this year
it’s this second reason really, that the UK has the capacity to pull the trigger on dumb issues, that has put me on the path to leaving. it’s not so much “EU good”, rather it’s “UK bad”. this encryption thing is icing on the cake for me, but it’s not the root cause.
Agree, I just worry that these ideas keep coming back again and again. No government or entity can be trusted and we need to keep an eye on them haha.
Obviously the UK is much more concerning at this specific point in time.