Parliament’s China spying scandal breaks the bond of trust

15 Sep 2023 | China, Hong Kong, News and features, United Kingdom

This week it emerged that a British parliamentary researcher who worked closely with senior MPs, working on UK security issues, had been arrested for espionage on behalf of the Chinese state. While the allegations have been denied, the focus of the coverage this week has been largely on the implications for UK security and the acknowledgement of the threats of Chinese spying on UK institutions.

However, there are some other serious consequences. At Index, we have reported on the long-arm of Chinese repression and their targeting of dissidents abroad. Our Banned by Beijing reports have focused on the influence of the Chinese state in the academic sphere through Confucius Institutes and funding in UK universities. The threat to academic freedom is serious enough.

At Index, we rely on the testimonies of dissidents to expose what is happening in repressive regimes where dictators and tyrants oppress the media and their peoples in order to maintain tight control. We can only achieve this through close relationships based on trust. They have to be convinced that we will do everything we can to keep them safe and that by speaking to us their situation and that of their families will be protected. We take that responsibility very seriously.

Dissidents have to feel that they are safe to discuss their experiences with Parliamentarians and not worry about their reports getting back to any regime, including the Chinese state, they have to be assured that by speaking privately to decision makers they will not be endangering their families remaining in China.

Our Banned by Beijing reports have repeatedly exposed how the CCP has targeted the families of dissidents as a tool to try and coerce people into silence. Privacy and security is vital for many dissidents to feel comfortable explaining their experiences; but for that they need to trust us.

My fear is that this scandal will undermine information gathering as the trust between Parliament and Chinese dissidents will have been broken. And it isn’t just a matter for those of us who have an interest in the repression dished out by the CCP, it is also a matter of huge concern for those of us who want dissidents to feel safe, wherever they come from.

Dissidents who have fled their country to shine a light on repression have left their lives behind. They have made huge sacrifices in order to excise their freedom of speech. They have done it so that their voices can be heard and the tyrant that runs their country can be exposed. Historically the saftest place to do that has been the British Parliament – where MPs have privilege and use the stories of dissidents to challenge the status quo. By undermining this bond of trust those who spy for a despotic regime haven’t just undermine the cause of Chinese dissidents – they have undermined the cause of all dissidents.

That trust must be rebuilt as a matter of urgency.

“An attack on encryption unprecedented in any democracy” 

8 Sep 2023 | News and features, Opinion, Ruth's blog, United Kingdom

Cast your mind back to January 2023, and the “world-leading, world-first Online Safety Bill” (Rishi Sunak responding to Labour’s Alex Davies-Jones) faced a significant backbench rebellion over an executive liability clause.

When the Bill landed in the House of Lords days later, a precarious agreement between Government and rebels had passed on a vast baton of legislative issues. There was a collective sigh of relief that the upper chamber would be taking on the mantle.

The threat to encryption, or private messaging, didn’t even feature as a concern amongst legislators, let alone the government, despite the Bill introducing measures unprecedented in any western democracy.

Flash forward to September, and encryption features as the most important and urgent issue that needs addressing before the Online Safety Act receives imminent Royal Assent.

The efforts of my colleagues at Index on Censorship, partners across civil society, and the businesses that rely on encryption have all been vital in achieving this.

Confidence in the Government’s ability to grasp the full consequences and details of their legislation has waned thin. Index and others have consistently warned that Section 122 of the Act is a gateway to the unprecedented mass-surveillance of British citizens and a threat to vulnerable people up and down the country.

As Index on Censorship’s report with Matthew Ryder KC set out:

  • Section 122 notices install the right to impose technologies that would intercept and scan private communications on a mass scale. The principle that the state can mandate the surveillance of millions of lawful users of private messaging apps should require a higher threshold of justification which has not been established to date.

  • Ofcom could impose surveillance on all private messaging users with a notice, underpinned by significant financial penalties, with less legal protections than equivalent powers under the Invetsigatory Powers Act.

  • The proposed interferences with the rights of UK citizens arising from surveillance under the Bill are unlikely to be in accordance with the law and are open to legal challenge.

  • Journalists will not be properly protected from state surveillance, risking source confidentiality and endangering human rights defenders and vulnerable communities.

From raising awareness of encryption in public debate, demonstrating its real-world effects for policy makers, to highlighting the unintended legal and technological consequences of the Bill, we finally have a Government that is at least not running head first into an attack on encryption that would be unprecedented in any democracy.

But the encryption die remains far from cast. Reports in the FT and elsewhere alluded to a Government ‘u-turn’ ahead of a Ministerial statement on Wednesday (6 September) that delivered nothing of the sort.

While some in the Government are briefing that encryption will be protected, the actions of its ministers do not match up to those words.

A new report by Index on Censorship this week revealed that that Online Safety Bill has alarming consequences when put alongside the controversial Investigatory Powers Act (snooper’s charter). This access, unprecedented in any Western democracy, could provide the Home Office with entry to British citizens’ personal messages as follows:.

  • Ofcom issues notice mandating the use of Accredited Technology to provide a backdoor to encrypted messages under the Online Safety Bill (section 122)

  • The Home Office or security services apply for a bulk surveillance warrant on account of a matter of national security (Investigatory Powers Act) granting them access to bulk data

This is extremely concerning, not least because the window in which the Government can legislate its way out of this mess is rapidly closing. The Online Safety Bill will return to the House of Commons for the first time in eight months on Monday (11 September) for a consideration of Lords’ amendments.

This is the last and only chance the Government has to follow up words with actions. They must go beyond Wednesday’s ministerial statement and allay the concerns once and for all by amending the Bill’s Section 122 notices as well excluding use of the IPA in conjunction with the Bill.

Our report sets out how the government can get this right. We’re running out of time. We hope that the government will see sense and put down amendments to fix the backdoor in the Online Safety Bill.

Online Safety Bill loophole opens door to unprecedented investigatory powers

6 Sep 2023 | News and features, United Kingdom

A new report from Index on Censorship raises the alarm proposed legislation that could lead to unprecedented and chilling surveillance of British citizens under the Investigatory Powers Act.

Clause 122 of the Online Safety Bill provides Ofcom the means to break encrypted messaging services through ‘technology notices’ served without legal oversight. Once ‘Accredited Technology’ is used to break encryption, the Home Office has the power to use “bulk surveillance warrants” under the Investigatory Powers Act: providing access to encrypted private messages en masse for the first time.

Without urgent clarification in Parliament, there is a risk that security services such as MI5 can compel technology companies who operate encrypted messaging services to interfere with user communications or acquire masses of data in secret. There is no clarity to date on whether Ofcom would be notified under such circumstances nor whether Ofcom themselves could be subjected to a bulk surveillance warrant as a result of the data insights they gain in their role as an independent regulator.

The long-standing campaign against the use of encryption technology has now seemingly culminated in a two-pronged legislative attack against British rights to privacy and freedom of expression. This report outlines the (1) meaning of new enforcement powers under the Online Safety Bill, (2) the Surveillance Gateway that is being opened, (3) proposed reforms to the Investigatory Powers Act and (4) the key questions that Parliament urgently needs answers on.

On Monday, 11 September 2023, the House of Commons will review the Online Safety Bill for the first time in nine months in which they will decide whether they accept the Government’s amendments to introduce mass surveillance on British people and to sign off on a massive curtailment of journalistic freedoms.

Download the report here or read it below.

Contents – Express yourself: Overcoming neurodiversity stereotypes

2 Aug 2023 | Afghanistan, Brazil, China, France, Israel, Italy, Malaysia, Mexico, Pakistan, Russia, Turkey, Ukraine, United States, Vietnam, Zambia, Zimbabwe

Contents

The Summer 2023 issue of Index looks at neurodiversity, the term coined in the late 1990s to identify and promote the positives of variation in human thinking which has become more widely used in the past few years. Are old stereotypes still rife? Has the perception of neurodiversity improved? If not, was this because of censorship? Using neurodivergent voices, we wanted to know about this in a global context.

The majority of the articles are written by neurodivergent people, as we wanted to put their voices front and centre. Many said they did have more of a voice, awareness had shot up and the word “neurodiversity” empowered and welcomed a growth in onscreen representation. However, at the same time it was clear that conversations around neurodiversity were playing out along society’s current fault-lines and were far from immune.

Up Front

Mind matters, by Jemimah Seinfeld: The term neurodiversity has positively challenged how we approach our minds. Has it done enough?

The Index, by Mark Frary: The latest in free expression news, from an explainer on Sudan to a cha-cha-cha starring Meghan and King Charles.

Features

Bars can't stop a bestseller, by Kaya Genç: Fiction is finding its way out of a Turkish prison, says former presidential hopeful and bestselling writer
Selahattin Demirtaş.

Don't mention femicide, by Chris Havler-Barrett: Murdered women are an inconvenience for Mexico’s president.

This is no joke, by Qian Gong and Jian Xu: The treatment of China’s comedians is no laughing matter.

Silent Disco, by Andrew Mambondiyani: Politicians are purging playlists in Zimbabwe, and musicians are speaking out.

When the Russians came, by Alina Smutko, Taras Ibragimov and Aliona Savchuk: The view from inside occupied Crimea, through the cameras of photographers banned by the Kremlin.

The language of war and peace, by JP O’Malley: Kremlin-declared “Russophobe foreign agent and traitor” Mikhail Shishkin lays out the impossible choices for Russians.

Writer's block, by Stacey Tsui: Hong Kong’s journalists are making themselves heard, thanks to blockchain technology.

The Russians risking it all, by Katie Dancey-Downs: Forced to sing songs and labelled as extremists, anti-war Russians are finding creative ways to take a stand.

The 'truth' is in the tea, by Jemimah Steinfeld: Spilling the tea on a London venue, which found itself in hot water due to a far-right speaker.

Waiting for China's tap on the shoulder, by Chu Yang: However far they travel, there’s no safe haven for journalists and academics who criticise China.

When the old fox walks the tightrope, by Danson Kahyana: An interview with Stella Nyanzi on Uganda’s latest anti-LGBTQ+ law.

Would the media lie to you?, by Ali Latifi: Fake news is flourishing in Afghanistan, in ways people might not expect.

Britain's Holocaust island, by Martin Bright: Confronting Britain’s painful secret, and why we must acknowledge what happened on Nazi-occupied Alderney.

The thorn in Vietnam's civil society side, by Thiện Việt: Thiện Việt: Responding to mass suppression with well-organised disruption.

Special Report: Express yoruself: Overcoming neurodiversity stereotypes

Not a slur, by Nick Ransom: What’s in a word? Exploring representation, and the power of the term “neurodiversity” to divide or unite.

Sit down, shut up, by Katharine P Beals: The speech of autistic non-speakers is being hijacked.

Fake it till you break it, by Morgan Barbour: Social media influencers are putting dissociative identity disorder in the spotlight, but some are accused of faking it.

Weaponising difference, by Simone Dias Marques: Ableist slurs in Brazil are equating neurodivergence with criminality.

Autism on screen is gonna be okay, by Katie Dancey-Downs: The Rain Man days are over. Everything’s Gonna Be Okay star Lillian Carrier digs into autism on screen.

Raising Malaysia's roof, by Francis Clarke: In a comedy club in Malaysia’s capital stand up is where people open up, says comedian Juliana Heng.

Living in the Shadows, by Ashley Gjøvik: When successful camouflage has a lasting impact.

Nigeria's crucible, by Ugonna-Ora Owoh: Between silence and lack of understanding, Nigeria’s neurodiverse are being mistreated.

My autism is not a lie, by Meltem Arikan: An autism diagnosis at 52 liberated a dissident playwright, but there’s no space for her truth in Turkey.

Comment

Lived experience, to a point, by Julian Baggini: When it comes to cultural debates, whose expertise carries the most weight?

France: On the road to illiberalism? by Jean-Paul Marthoz: Waving au revoir to the right to criticise.

Monitoring terrorists, gangs - and historians, by Andrew Lownie: The researcher topping the watchlist on his majesty’s secret service.

We are all dissidents, by Ruth Anderson: Calls to disassociate from certain dissidents due to their country of birth are toxic and must be challenged.

Culture

Manuscripts don't burn, by Rebecca Ruth Gould: Honouring the writers silenced by execution in Georgia, and unmuzzling their voices.

Obscenely familiar, by Marc Nash: A book arguing for legalised homosexuality is the spark for a fiction rooted in true events.

A truly graphic tale, by Taha Siddiqui and Zofeen T Ebrahim: A new graphic novel lays bare life on Pakistan’s kill list, finding atheism and a blasphemous tattoo.

A censored day? by Kaya Genç: Unravelling the questions that plague the censor, in a new short story from the Turkish author.

Poetry's peacebuilding tentacles, by Natasha Tripney: Literature has proven its powers of peace over the last decade in Kosovo.

Palestine: I still have hope, by Bassem Eid: Turning to Israel and Palestine, where an activist believes the international community is complicit in the conflict.

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