British ISP: Of course you can be a protected anonymous press source, you just need to show us photo ID first

Updated on Aug 6, 2021 by Rick Falkvinge

The British Internet provider O2 disputed the previous story that they don’t permit people to access tools that give them anonymity protection, like this VPN service. “You only need to show photo ID in one of our stores”, they said, via a link provided. So in order to be an anonymous and protected press source, you need to show a photo ID. You couldn’t make it up if you tried. Britain, what’s happened to you?

The previous story detailed how Britain now has default-on censorship for political opinions, as Internet providers Vodafone, O2, EE, and Sky censor this blog by default. While this blog is on a corporate site, it is still highly political: we fight for liberty in many forms, such as freedom of speech, the right to privacy and anonymity, and last but not least, net neutrality. That’s why it leaves a particularly bad taste that telcos happen to default-censor the political pieces on this site.

The argument that “but you can identify to prove your age and have the censorship disabled”, which some countered with, is not an excuse in this context. If anything, it makes the whole thing even more offensive to attempt justifying it by throwing in a papieren, bitte into the situation.

The ISP O2 was particularly tone-deaf in this context, even though they tried responding to the “concerns” that they default-censor pieces of net neutrality:

The entire exchange goes as follows, in case you can’t see it on Twitter:

Andrew Terry says, “O2, you’re censoring a VPN provider landing page. Uncool.”

O2 responds, “Oh dear, that’s not good. Are you able to verify your age using the link? More info can be found here.” Under the link, it makes clear that there are two ways to get off the censorship: either show a photo ID in one of their shops or provide proof of ownership of a credit card (in which case somebody else will have required a photo ID).

I follow up, “Dear O2, did you miss the point completely? You’re requiring that whistleblowers, ANONYMOUS PRESS SOURCES, must identify themselves.”

O2 responds again, “Hi Rick, you’d only need to verify your age.”

Responding to this, pointing out that they are either missing the point or lying outright, I say, “And how do you verify your age, if not simultaneously identifying yourself?”.

They respond by providing the same link again, which says there are two ways to get off the censorship list and thereby being able to secure your anonymity when being an anonymous source to the press. One of them is to show photo ID to their representatives. Yes, really. The headline is not even exaggerated. O2 is literally instructing people, who want to be anonymous press sources for their own safety, to show photo ID in order to access anonymity tools.

The link provided by O2 gives these instructions:

The “for the safety of children” is particularly revolting in this context. You can’t remove people’s ability to be an anonymous source to the press, and then claim you’re doing it “to protect the children”. The whole situation is beyond Kafkaeque and Orwellian at the same time. O2, you need to start valuing democracy’s safeguards, such as privacy and anonymity, which allows power to be held accountable, above random moral panics that shout “for the children”.

By the way, Vodafone, EE, and Sky, you’re no better for not responding at all.

Privacy really seems to remain your own responsibility.

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