Internet Encryption

Countess of Mar Excerpts

Tuesday 14th May 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

Clearly, DoH is on the agenda at DCMS and will be included everywhere it is relevant. On the consideration of enforcement—as I said before, it may require changes to potential enforcement mechanisms—we are aware that there are other enforcement mechanisms. It is not true to say that you cannot block sites; it makes it more difficult, and you have to do it in a different way.

[The Countess of Mar (CB)]

My Lords, for the uninitiated, can the noble Lord tell us what DoH means —very briefly, please?

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

It is not possible to do so very briefly. It means that, when you send a request to a server and you have to work out which server you are going to by finding out the IP address, the message is encrypted so that the intervening servers are not able to look at what is in the message. It encrypts the message that is sent to the servers. What that means is that, whereas previously every server along the route could see what was in the message, now only the browser will have the ability to look at it, and that will put more power in the hands of the browsers.