Labour urges government to consider crackdown on VPNs

42 comments
  1. Good old authoritarian Labour. Seems like they never really got into civil liberties at any point in the last 25 years. Think of the children though, or whatever the latest reason they have now is. If you use a VPN, the bad guys win.

  2. This is nothing to do with children and never has been. VPNs allow people to access the Web without Government restrictions. This is about controlling information, always has been.

  3. So what exactly does “crackdown on VPNs” mean?

    If the problem is the inability to regulate foreign porn sites, what makes you think you can regulate foreign VPNs? Or VPS providers (via which you can set up your own VPN)?

    Or do the MPs intend to implement a Great Firewall of ~~China~~ Great Britain?

    Yet another decoration on this Xmas Tree Bill.

  4. I suspect that most teenagers using a VPN to look at porn aren’t springing for one of the big dogs (Express, Nord etc). They’re using dodgy free VPNs run by Belarusian cyber criminals.

    Belarusian cyber criminals won’t care about Ofcom and its sanctions.

  5. I think VPNs are the least of their worries, but they’ll always deflect the issues to avoid actually doing anything meaningful.

  6. They’re attempting to achieve something even the CCP is unable to achieve with their absolute control over the country.. I hope they haven’t wasted too much taxpayers money on this bullshit..

  7. Do they not realise a great number of businesses rely on VPN’s for their staff to work from home? Labour really need to be better than this nonsense.

  8. Just as you thought labour might win. They fuck it up.

    Vote Lib Dem!

    We forgive you for the student fees

  9. This is obviously a terrible idea, but if you combine the general New Labour authoritarian impulse with these people’s sincere belief that people being rude to them online is the most pressing issue facing the nation, this will be a top priority regardless of consequences

  10. Well that’s my company screwed. The only way to securely transfer data to the other branches is via a VPN

  11. Why are all the the big three parties(and the SNP) so authoritarian. Every year they seem to because less and less liberal

  12. Ffs labour, get your shit together and find something useful to complain about. VPNs aren’t enforceable thats tge point of them, they are one of the ever shrinking ways to have a free internet thats free of rampant data collection

  13. Anyone remember the fuss Tories made about Labour proposals for Biometric ID cards in the 2010 election…reminds me of that.

    Labour shooting themselves in the foot again over somthing easily sensationalised into Social Authoritarianism.

  14. Labour support Governmental control of information.
    Labour, no longer distinguishable from Tories.
    Labour, no longer worthy of the name.

  15. Let’s crack down on clueless old cunts, and technophobic middle class mummies who want the government to parent their kids for them.

  16. Children use them to circumvent age restrictions?

    You mean that box that asks your age and you write 25? Not sure how using a VPN helps or hinders that. As far as I can see, the only way to restrict access is to demand a form of ID only an adult could have such as a credit card (not a debit card). This then leads to problems of credit card fraud when companies get attacked and there’s a data leak.

    The whole idea is utter rubbish. Computing magazines have been promoting the use of VPNs for years especially when using hotspots / free coffee shop wifi and so on. Millions of people use them.

    If I couldn’t use one then, I would need to keep sending an encrypted USB drive backward and forward to the companies I work for. Bonus for couriers but a massive hit to productivity which the government keep complaining about.

  17. Old men trying to make sense of the world! They probably don’t even understand how vpns work they just know that it means they have less control of people when they use them. Pretty funny that labour are really trying to be as unlikeable at the tories

  18. Don’t waste our tax money trying to ban something that cannot be banned and start helping the economy and the people who truly support it to be able to eat and keep warm without worrying about if they have enough to keep the lights on

  19. To ban VPNs, you would have to ban encryption.
    The same encryption that allows you to buy goods and services online and do online banking or even login to a website.

    Whoever suggested this is a moron.

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