“As enacted, the OSB allows the government to force companies to build technology that can scan regardless of encryption–in other words, build a backdoor.”
The Online Safety Bill passed with the scanning clause intact. Ofcom can order any company to scan every user’s messages, encrypted or not. The government’s answer is private reassurances to tech firms that it won’t use the power it just wrote into law. A promise not to use a backdoor is still a backdoor, and the only real defence left is encrypted messengers keeping their promise to leave the U.K.