They'll be going after VPN's next. "Online safety" is just a political football to be kicked around.
The idea is moronic, but the blame lies at the feet of Christian conservatives who vote with their feelings. All of the moral panics of the past several decades have emotive and religious roots.
Another thing to point out, Sunak had one foot out of this country before he became PM, he wouldn't have to know the deleterious effects of any of his or his predecessors actions.
I use a business VPN which allows me to securely connect to my works network using only my work equipment. All legit.
I host my own VPN at my home so I can connect into my network while out and about. All legit.
I then do sometimes use a VPN for bypassing regional restrictions. This is the one I assume they would target but I don't understand how.
Surely they can only ban the use of it and not the technology. It would only add to a list of crimes to somebody the police has been targeting already. A bit like in my local area where the only people charged with illegally using an electric scooter are drug dealers.
The ineptitude of the government is what gives me hope, it seems like every year there's something like this but nothing ever comes of it. Sometimes they're "banning encryption", sometimes there's some idea of internet filters, nothing ever comes of it. They don't have the intelligence to come up with anything workable.
Yes, it's often bluster, but there are just as many ideologues in government as there are in the general public. They come out strong with policies like this because they need to present as a government that would take the action their voters want, if only it wasn't for those lefty lawyers!
Cameron did it with the wholly ineffective porn block. He begged the biggest ISPs to block porn and settled at making it opt in. Ostensible, but still a victory to the socially conservative voters he was targeting.
We can't just rely on that. We need to fight politically or get into a right old mess. Laws need to enforceable, not only selectively enforceable.
Millions will just use a VPN, but if there is an MP the media wants gone, "MP found on darkweb!". We all know Gove and others are coke heads, but at the moment, no drug charges are brought. But you can bet some poor kid, especially if ethnic, if caught by police doing coke, will have the book thrown at them. Laws need to universally enforced or they make an ass of the law.
I've given up trying to keep track of all these schemes.
Each one filled with more pie-in-the-sky nonsense that will never pass, all so the government of the day can go "well, we tried, but Elitist Technoboffins and Openly Gay Olympic Fencers won't let us."