Be careful what you wish for - Orwell's 1984 could come true
New consumer protection rules risk creating a surveillance society. Network operators will not be obliged to inform you when you surf to a site that the state deems to be rogue.
Imagine a system in which the government imposes a duty on all road authorities in Sweden to inform anyone driving an uninsured car that the car they are driving is not insured. This would mean that all road authorities would have to identify all vehicles on the road. In addition, a database would be needed where the road manager could check the insurance status of all cars in real time. Then, a solution would be needed to allow the road manager to divert all uninsured vehicles onto a brand new parallel road and inform motorists that the car is uninsured. Once the driver has confirmed that they are aware that they are driving an uninsured vehicle, the road authority has fulfilled its obligation. And then the driver just has to get back on the main road again.
This is, of course, sheer stupidity and not something that the state should be able to require. It would involve unreasonable costs to inform drivers of something they probably already know. But this is in fact what our legislator is proposing in all seriousness with regard to the electronic road network.
New consumer protection rules risk building surveillance society
Under the new Gambling Act, online operators may be obliged to inform you that you intend to access a gambling site that does not have a Swedish gambling license. And the proposal for new consumer protection rules also proposes the same kind of stupidity. Sorry, obligation. Namely, that the operator must inform you that you are about to surf to a site that the state deems to be rogue. You, as a user, should be able to click past the message and then continue to the unsuitable site, but the operator must ensure that you have received the information.
For network operators to succeed in doing what is required, they need to start intercepting all traffic within their network. This is so they can find that small sliver of inappropriate traffic that regulators want to reach and inform users about it. This will require huge investment - not least to build new parallel networks alongside existing ones so that traffic can continue uninterrupted. And this is not just about one operator's network, but more than 700. Guess who will pay in the end?
On top of everything else, this also violates net neutrality, carrier neutrality, e-privacy and probably also GDPR. It damages established security solutions and opens up for attacks. In addition, all traffic is suspected to find inappropriate traffic to inform the user about it. Thus not preventing.
Protest now
For a surveillance society, this is the beginning of a wet dream where you will be able to eavesdrop and track everything you want.
But this is not a society that anyone can want. That's why we need to protest now. Before the technology is established and the rules are set.