Internet Encryption

Lord Clement-Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 14th May 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for discussing this with me beforehand, which was very welcome. I agree that there may be serious consequences from DoH. The DoH protocol has been defined by the Internet Engineering Task Force. Where I do not agree with the noble Baroness is that this is not an obscure organisation; it has been the dominant internet technical standards organisation for 30-plus years and has attendants from civil society, academia and the UK Government as well as the industry. The proceedings are available online and are not restricted. It is important to know that DoH has not been rolled out yet and the picture is complex—there are pros to DoH as well as cons. We will continue to be part of these discussions; indeed, there was a meeting last week, convened by the NCSC, with DCMS and industry stakeholders present.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness has raised a very important issue, and it sounds from the Minister’s Answer as though the Government are somewhat behind the curve on this. When did Ministers actually get to hear about the new encrypted DoH protocol? Does it not risk blowing a very large hole in the Government’s online safety strategy set out in the White Paper?

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

As I said to the noble Baroness, the Government attend the IETF. The protocol was discussed from October 2017 to October 2018, so it was during that process. As far as the online harms White Paper is concerned, the technology will potentially cause changes in enforcement by online companies, but of course it does not change the duty of care in any way. We will have to look at the alternatives to some of the most dramatic forms of enforcement, which are DNS blocking.