There are few better ways to stoke a class-warfare debate in the UK than to either (a) point-out or (b) question whether something is “elitist” — private schooling, private healthcare, private housing, even private transport —  and now in the post-OnlineSafetyBill world there’s a new one: private privacy.

Bluntly: I have a daughter, and the Government want to be able to spy on all her communications. I can teach her how to circumvent all of that, because encryption is simply a matter of using computers to speak your words in impenetrable numbers.

As I wrote on Twitter:

I am a parent, and I want my daughter to grow up knowing that she can have absolute privacy in communication – because she can, in fact this is something which has been guaranteed to everyone since the invention of public key encryption in 1975. *BUT* this is a capability which should not be reserved for the politically and technically capable. SHE SHOULD NOT HAVE TO TEACH HER FRIENDS HOW TO COMMUNICATE SAFELY AND PRIVATELY

The next generations should not need special apps & tech wizardry: Our children’s experiences are the templates for their future, and if they are denied privacy and agency rather than being taught how to harness it and how to *be* safe online… then they never will be safe, especially “at scale.”

…

Keeping kids safe is not a matter to be thrown to the platforms and blamed upon “tech”; it requires active parenting, active education, and actively equipping those in loco parentis to perform their jobs appropriately.

The Government is derelict here, not the Internet.

My daughter will learn to use encryption, for fun. She will use PGP to be “old skool” and because nobody can take that away. She will understand key management, exploits, and backdoors. But should this capability be a “superpower” for her? Or should everyone have that? Also we, together, will discuss: how to spot and report grooming, how to avoid being exploited, how to get care and minimise harm if it happens. And also: how to doxx perpetrators.

This is the best way I can help her to be safe for a lifetime, even when I’m gone.

How about you?