Are you ready to give up your privacy for security?

[dropcap]O[/dropcap]n January 12, David Cameron told us that we should “not allow terrorists safe space to communicate with each other”, in an address in which he announced his plans to ban all forms of encryption that the government cannot have access to.

This announcement follows on from the Charlie Hebdo attacks of January 7, in which two gunmen stormed the offices of a satirical magazine in Paris and shot 12 people. Cameron argues that attacks like this will continue to happen in the future if the government cannot access encrypted communication channels such as Whatsapp and Snapchat.

However, the strange nature of this suggestion is that Cameron is using the terrorist attack in Paris in support of his argument, whereas his policy would in fact be diametrically opposed to what the response to the Paris attack is all about: freedom.

The problem is that people are scared right now, and when people are scared the government is able to campaign for and suggest the sorts of things that would never be entertained under normal circumstances.

The reasons for their ability to do this are manifold: on the one hand, people and media outlets are preoccupied with the more “important” things happening in the world, in this case the murder of several satirical cartoonists, and there simply isn’t space on the front pages for highlighting the disturbing changes being suggested.

People want exciting stories, not politics. On the other hand, as previously mentioned, the government can rely on the exacerbated fear of terrorism at such a time in order to gain support.

In 2012, the Home Secretary, Theresa May, attemped to put the Communications Data Bill through parliament, a bill that was dubbed with the nickname, ‘the Snooper’s Charter’.

The stipulation of this bill was that internet service providers and mobile phone companies would have to store the records of each individual user’s browsing activity, emails, calls, gaming, and texting for 12 months so that the government could access it whenever it wanted to. This issue is more relevant to students than it seems at first, because the services that will be affected by a ban on encryption are those such as Snapchat and Whatsapp, apps that are primarily used by the younger generation.

I don’t believe that this policy is entirely in the interests of protecting us from terrorists, but I do believe it’s a very political act. We are nearing a general election, a horrendous and brutal attack happens in Paris and Cameron wants to look tough on terrorism. When we consider that the typical Conservative voter is of an older age demographic than most students, the motives become apparent.

Here’s an easy way for Cameron to appear like a strong leader, steering the country out of the grasp of terrorism, while targeting apps that, if banned, would primarily affect the young.

The Conservatives are happy to alienate the young in favour of the old because they know where their loyal voters are, and we do not fall into that category. While the principle of this potential policy change is wrong, it is also an absurd notion: several online articles have demonstrated that his ideas simply wouldn’t work. If you allow the government a way into encrypted messages, you weaken those encryptions to other people looking to cause trouble, such as hackers.

On top of this, encryption is used for all sorts of data on the internet, and not just social media: online banking details, credit card information, etc. Surely the proposal would not be to ban those forms of encryption as well? A move such as this would benefit the government, and benefit their re-election campaign, while moving us towards a society in which there is no privacy, no “safe space” for normal people to communicate with each other. Restrictions should not be placed on us to appease a political party’s core vote.