Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has claimed Britain’s Australian-style social media ban will contribute to a “tightening” surveillance state in the United Kingdom.
UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer on Monday said he would impose a ban on social media sites for children under 16 to “give kids their childhood back”.
The government said media regulator Ofcom would conduct a rapid study to establish the best way to verify someone’s age, as well as develop a new enforcement strategy and receive additional funding.
Mr Farage said the move “worried” him, fearing it would be used to restrict civil liberties.
“It seems to me that we’re all going to have to prove our age… this would mean full facial recognition and going onto a digital register,” he said.
“I fear that it is digital ID via the back door. We all want kids protected. No one disagrees with that. The question is how we go about it and the rest of us shouldn’t lose our liberties and freedoms for that.”
The UK government has not said whether facial scanning will be used to enforce the ban and has so far not announced plans to establish a digital register.
UK police do have the capacity to deploy Live Facial Recognition (LFR) technology, which scans faces against a police watchlist, but only in limited circumstances.
It is not clear whether the technology will be utilised to restrict teenagers from accessing social media.
Civil liberties campaigners in the UK have argued LFR technology risked normalising mass surveillance in public spaces.
Asked if digital ID-style age checks would contribute to a “surveillance state”, Mr Farage said it was encroaching on freedoms.
“Listen, if it meant our streets were safer, it’d be fantastic, but it doesn’t,” Mr Farage said.
“So it’s one law for all of us, and a tightening restriction on our freedoms, and for the criminal gangs, they carry on with impunity. All the cameras we’ve got have not made us safer. They just haven’t.”
Announcing the ban on Monday, Sir Keir said he would aim to pass social media regulations before Christmas and have the ban come into force by early 2027.
A full response to the government’s consultation on the issue will be published in July, fleshing out details of the policy.
The British government said it would block children using social media platforms which enable user-to-user social interaction, allowing users to post material with algorithms.
This means the ban will include platforms like Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and X, the government said in a statement.
Messaging services like WhatsApp or music streaming services are not intended to be included in the ban, but exemptions will be kept under review.
The British government also said it would block livestreaming and stranger communication for under-16s, including gaming sites.
Sir Keir said this would prevent strangers contacting children through these sites.
Overnight curfews and breaks in infinite scrolling for under 18 year olds are set to be examined in more detail over the coming weeks.
With Reuters