Tag: united kingdom

Keir Starmer Considers VPN ID Checks as UK Expands Online Safety Act Powers

Having already installed itself as the nation’s digital nanny with its online censorship law, the Online Safety Act, the government is now peering into the last remaining corner of online privacy and wondering whether it, too, might benefit from a sturdy padlock.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer has confirmed that ministers are examining new powers to move beyond social media age limits and into the architecture of private browsing itself. The latest idea involves ID checks for VPN use and chatbots.

Naturally, this is all for the children.

A VPN, or virtual private network, is often treated like a villainous contraption, but it’s actually a tool that encrypts your internet traffic and masks your location. In plain English, it stops internet providers, advertisers, and sometimes governments from tracking what you read, watch, or search.

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Demented: Councillor Pushes Kids To Send VALENTINE’S CARDS To Illegal Male

A Green Party councillor in the UK has sparked outrage by announcing plans to take her young grandchildren to deliver handmade Valentine’s Day cards to adult male asylum seekers at a migrant camp.

This comes amid widespread local opposition to the government’s decision to house hundreds of illegal migrants in a former military base, and fresh revelations about horrific crimes committed by similar arrivals.

Anne Cross, an East Sussex County councillor, made the announcement at a heated public meeting, claiming it would help “dispel fear” by encouraging people to “hear the stories” of the migrants. “There is nothing like getting to know people and hearing their stories in order to dispel fear,” she said. “My grandchildren and I painted some Valentine’s Cards at the weekend which we are going to be presenting to the men at Crowborough as a welcome.”

The camp in Crowborough, a former army cadet training site, has been repurposed by the Home Office to accommodate up to 540 male migrants who arrived via small boats. Local residents have protested the move, with demonstrations highlighting concerns over safety and community impact. The additional policing costs alone are projected at £5.62 million, according to Sussex Police and Crime Commissioner Katy Bourne.

Cross urged community representatives to “stand with all those who share the love,” but her plan has been met with fierce backlash. Sussex Weald Conservative MP Nus Ghani called it “disturbing” and “highly irresponsible,” pointing to “widespread concern locally” and a lack of “regard for safeguarding” when involving children with “single adult men.”

Unfazed, Cross insisted the cards would be anonymous and that “there has been much misinformation about the men who will be housed in the camp and this has created a climate of fear.” She added, “But there is no evidence children or women are at a higher risk from people seeking asylum than other sections of our society.”

This naive stance ignores a pattern of sexual crimes linked to asylum seekers across the UK. Just days ago, details emerged of a chilling case where Ahmed Müller, a 23-year-old Afghan national who arrived illegally by small boat four months prior, was convicted of abducting, raping, and filming a 12-year-old girl in Nuneaton.

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UK Regulator Ofcom Proposes Second Fine Against US Platform 4chan

Britain’s speech regulator, Ofcom, has proposed another financial penalty against 4chan under the Online Safety Act, deepening a censorship dispute that stretches from London to Washington.

4chan is an American platform, hosted in the United States, with no presence in Britain. Yet under the Online Safety Act, Ofcom believes that this falls under its authority.

Tensions increased after Ofcom declined to provide 4chan with a copy of its provisional decision before announcing the outcome publicly. According to the platform’s legal team, this decision limited its ability to respond in real time.

Preston Byrne, counsel for 4chan, stated that the regulator’s refusal was intended “to deny us the opportunity for a public rebuttal.”

He further accused the regulator of engaging in “domestic narrative control” by withholding advance access to the decision while preparing to publish its conclusions.

Ofcom announced that it has escalated its enforcement action against 4chan, stating: “In accordance with section 130 of the Online Safety Act 2023, we have today issued 4chan Community Support LLC with a provisional notice of contravention.”

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UK Fines US Platform Imgur For Lack of Age Verification

Imgur’s decision to suspend access for UK users in September 2025 was an early signal that regulatory pressure was building. The platform’s parent company has now learned the financial cost of that pressure.

The UK Information Commissioner’s Office has fined MediaLab, which operates image hosting company Imgur, £247,590 ($337,000) for violations of the UK GDPR.

According to the regulator, the company processed children’s personal data without a lawful basis, failed to implement effective age assurance measures, and did not complete a required data protection impact assessment.

The ICO’s findings focus on how children under 13 were able to use the service without verified parental consent or “any other lawful basis.”

The regulator also determined that the company lacked meaningful age checks. That means the platform did not reliably verify whether users were children before collecting and processing their data. Additionally, MediaLab did not conduct a formal risk assessment to examine how its service might affect minors’ rights and freedoms.

“MediaLab failed in its legal duties to protect children, putting them at unnecessary risk,” said UK Information Commissioner John Edwards. “For years, it allowed children to use Imgur without any effective age checks, while collecting and processing their data, which in turn exposed them to harmful and inappropriate content. Age checks help organizations keep children’s personal information safe.”

He added, “Ignoring the fact that children use these services, while processing their data unlawfully, is not acceptable. Companies that choose to ignore this can expect to face similar enforcement action.”

The ICO says it has the authority to impose fines of up to £17.5 million or 4 percent of an organization’s annual global revenue, whichever is higher. In setting the penalty at £247,590, the office stated that it “took into consideration the number of children affected by this breach, the degree of potential harm caused, the duration of the contraventions, and the company’s global turnover.”

This enforcement action sits within a broader UK policy change toward mandatory online age verification.

Lawmakers and regulators have increasingly pressed platforms to deploy age assurance tools that can include document checks, facial age estimation, or third-party verification services. All-privacy invasive.

While positioned as child protection measures, these systems often require users to submit government-issued identification or biometric data simply to access online services.

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UK RELEASES Dangerous Bomb Plot Terrorist From Prison EARLY

The UK continues its slide into absurdity, where convicted terrorists plotting to bomb British targets get early release or even run for office, while citizens daring to post about grooming gangs or question mass migration face prison time.

The latest insanity comes in the case of Zahid Iqbal, one of Britain’s most dangerous terrorists, who is poised for release just weeks from now—a full three years ahead of schedule.

Jailed in 2013 for plotting to bomb an Army base in Luton using instructions from an Al-Qaeda manual titled “How to make a bomb in the kitchen of your mom,” Iqbal admitted to engaging in conduct in preparation for acts of terrorism.

Recordings revealed Iqbal suggesting an IED attached to a remote-controlled toy car to target a TA centre. He also facilitated travel for extremist training abroad. Despite expert advice against it, the parole board has greenlit his freedom under strict conditions, even ignoring warnings from his prison and community offender managers.

Reform UK’s crime adviser Colin Sutton called it a “baffling decision,” noting that Iqbal’s prior early release in 2021 was revoked for non-compliance, and questioning why he’d behave now.

“You know, there’s an expectation we’ve all got. These are the most serious offences that you can commit against our society,” Sutton urged, adding “this wasn’t a guy in his bedroom cooking something up. This was somebody who arranged training. He had links with al-Qaeda. He was a proper terrorist. And he was released early in 2021 and had to be called back in because he wasn’t complying with the conditions.”

This isn’t isolated. As we previously covered, Shahid Butt, convicted in 1999 for conspiring to bomb the British consulate in Yemen, is standing for election as a pro-Gaza independent in Birmingham’s Sparkhill ward. Linked to an armed Islamist group and past violence, Butt urges Muslim youth to “work out at the gym and learn to fight” against “disbelievers.”

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Labour MSP defends ‘loyalty and care’ friendship with convicted paedophile that cost her the party whip

A Labour MSP has defended her relationship with a twice-convicted paedophile after she was suspended from the party.

Pam Duncan-Glancy said she was ‘deeply disappointed’ by Scottish Labour’s decision to remove the whip and said it was not yet clear why the party chose to do so now.

Party leader Anas Sarwar told reporters at Holyrood that the Glasgow MSP had been suspended after ‘new information’ came to light.

It is not yet clear what the information is or when the party found out about it.

Ms Duncan-Glancy was sacked as Scottish Labour’s shadow education secretary by Mr Sarwar in December following revelations about her friendship with Sean Morton, a former Labour councillor in Moray who held indecent images of children.

In 2017, he was convicted for possessing indecent child images as well as extreme pornography of animals.

He was convicted again in January 2025 for possessing indecent images of children and breaching a sexual offences order and was given a 16-month sentence.

In her statement, Ms Duncan-Glancy said that while she did not condone Morton’s crimes, he remains someone who is vulnerable and in need of support.

She said: ‘I am deeply disappointed that the Party have taken the decision to remove the whip. The details of their decision to do this now are not yet clear to me.

‘My personal relationship with someone who grew up with me, who stayed with my family for periods of time during our childhood, and who is to all intents and purposes, family, has never affected my work.

‘When he was convicted of these very serious crimes, the justice system, rightly, dealt with him. I have never condoned his crimes and have always been clear that his actions were wrong.

‘He, however, was and remains someone requiring support, and my family and I, as is often the case, ensured his welfare.

‘There is no doubt this is difficult. I accept that not everyone will understand my reasons for doing what I did.

‘My actions arise from loyalty and care. I was providing support to a highly vulnerable person. Loyalty and care are values that I think make me a good representative and for which I believe others know me for.

‘I am also hugely grateful for the outpouring of support I have been shown, from constituents, colleagues, family, friends and indeed strangers alike.

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Why was a dog-humping paedo treated like a saint?

Journalism takes you to some strange places. Alas, to date in my career, I have yet to be asked to review a luxury hotel or a Michelin-starred restaurant. Instead, my lot is to probe the creeps and the criminals, the dregs and the drag queens. Today’s specimen, the convicted child rapist and popular drag queen, Darren Moore (full name Darren Haydn Meah-Moore), ticks every box.

When the entertainer’s body was found in an alleyway in Cardiff city centre in January 2023, his death prompted a frenzy of speculation. The BBC ran multiple pieces on the investigation and even covered a vigil held at Windsor Place, Cardiff.

‘It’s rocked the community, that’s all I can say, no one’s safe anywhere’, his friend, Richard Smith, told a BBC reporter. Drag performer Myky Webb warned it was ‘very worrying for Cardiff as a city and for queer people in Cardiff on the scene, to think that this kind of thing still happens in 2023’. Rob Llewelyn said he had watched Moore sing in Cardiff over the past 20 years. ‘Everyone in the gay community knew him, he was just liked by everyone’, Llewelyn said.

The unspoken assumption in the BBC’s reporting was clear: that the dead gay man, who was found in a luminous green dress, blonde wig and diamante heels, had been the victim of a hate crime. Amid the public outpouring, popular children’s drag entertainer Aida H Dee helped raise funds for Moore’s funeral. On the day of the funeral, Cardiff Council and the police went so far as to close roads across the city to accommodate a horse-drawn cortège.

Now, two years on, an inquest has revealed the truth about Moore’s death. And it is grisly. The coroner ruled that this, er, beloved pillar of the community might have died from an allergy to dog semen. I don’t think I have ever written a sentence as grotesque – so that’s a first.

The 39-year-old certainly went out with a bang. He had been on a night out in Cardiff, performing under one of his monikers – Crystal Couture and CC Quinn. He had ‘spent time… with two men’ before leaving a nightclub. Shortly before 6am, he encountered a man walking his dog. The pair went to an alleyway together. The dog went with them. The last man to see Moore alive said he and Moore had sex, before Moore ‘encouraged’ the dog to ‘join in’. The coroner found that ‘at some stage between 5.52am and 6.38am, the man’s dog penetrated Darren’. Although he couldn’t confirm precisely which of the men had goaded the dog, he added that it would have been ‘almost impossible’ for the dog to have performed the act without ‘guidance and encouragement’ from a human. The second man said Moore later fell asleep in the alleyway. This is where he was found dead the next morning.

As no one in recorded history has died from dog ejaculate, it was not possible for the coroner to confirm that this was definitely Moore’s cause of death. Nonetheless, he found that he was not able to rule out the dog’s semen – and Moore’s allergy to dogs – as a possibility. The official cause of death was registered as ‘sudden death in a man with bronchial asthma in the cold who had consumed alcohol and in a temporal association with sexual activity including intercourse with a dog’.

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Former head of UK drugs regulator faces being struck off medical register after failing to reveal convictions for child sex offences

A former head of the UK drugs regulator has been banned from working as a doctor after failing to reveal his convictions for child sex offences.

Dr Ian Hudson trained as a paediatrician and worked in the pharmaceutical industry before going on to serve as chief executive of the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) for six years.

But a tribunal this week ruled his fitness to practice is impaired and ordered his erasure from the General Medical Council’s register of doctors, preventing him from practicing in the UK.

The panel heard Hudson was convicted at Chelmsford Magistrate’s Court in 2024 of two counts of attempting to engage in sexual communication with a child.

He was sentenced to a six month custodial sentence suspended for 18 months, forced to sign the sex offenders register for ten years and subjected to a five year sexual harm prevention order.

But the father-of-one failed in his duty to notify the GMC of the charges and convictions ‘without delay’, the Medical Practitioner’s Tribunal Service was told.

The hearing, presided over by three tribunal members, determined his conduct and offending were at the upper end of the scale of seriousness and there was a ‘high risk’ to public safety.

They suspended Hudson from the GMC’s Register with immediate effect and he will be permanently struck off he fails to appeal the outcome within 28 days.

The GMC asked the tribunal to erase Hudson from the its Register, citing the seriousness of his offences and the importance of maintaining public confidence in the medical profession.

Arguing that ‘the Tribunal could not conclude that Hudson’s behaviour’s wouldn’t be repeated and that the level of risk was high with only limited insight and that remediation was limited and incomplete,’ it also asked that an immediate suspension order be imposed during the customary 28 day appeal period.

Hudson, who represented himself at the virtual hearing, insisted ‘he had good insight into his actions and had done as much to remediate as he could think of’.

He said there were ‘elements of his work that required him to be on the medical register despite having no contact with patients’ and asked to remain on it – but with restrictions that prevented him from working with children in a medical capacity.

Given his significant expertise and experience ‘he still had a lot to offer for the benefit of wider society and could do so without risking the public,’ he added.

The GMC said there were no extenuating circumstances for the Tribunal to take into account.

Dr Hudson began his medical career in the 1980s working as a paediatrician.

According to his official Government biography he worked in pharmaceutical research and development team at SmithKleinBeecham for 12 years before his appointment in 2001 as the Head of Licensing at the MHRA’s predecessor the Medicine’s Control Agency.

He served as the MHRA’s Chief Executive from 2013 to 2019.

Following his departure from the MHRA, Hudson was awarded an OBE in the 2020 New Years Honours in recognition of his leadership and work on healthcare regulation and medicines oversight.

Hudson later worked for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation as its Senior Advisor, Regulatory Affairs, Integrated Development, Global Health until 2024.

His appointment by the BMGF immediately following his tenure as MHRA Chief Executive was subject to review by the Office of the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments who imposed two conditions restricting his use of privileged non-public information acquired during his time at the MHRA and prohibiting any direct involvement in lobbying the UK government.

More recently he has worked a director, advisor or consultant for various heath firms.

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Now A.I. could decide whether criminals get jail terms… or go free

Artificial intelligence should be used to help gauge the risk of letting criminals go free or dodge prison, a government adviser has said.

Martyn Evans, chairman of the Sentencing and Penal Policy Commission, said AI would have a ‘role’ in the criminal justice system and could be used by judges making decisions about whether to jail offenders.

AI programmes could look at whether someone is safe to be released early into the community or avoid a jail term in favour of community service – despite concern over its accuracy and tendency to ‘hallucinate’ or make up wrong information.

The commission – set up by Justice Secretary Angela Constance – has proposed effectively phasing out prison sentences of up to two years and slashing the prison population by nearly half over the next decade.

Speaking to the Mail, Mr Evans, former chairman of the Scottish Police Authority (SPA), said he was ‘absolutely convinced’ that AI ‘will have a role’ in risk assessment and other areas.

He said: ‘The thing is not to put all your eggs in an AI report – AI aids human insight.

‘So for criminal justice social workers having to do thousands and thousands of reports, police, procurators, it will help if you have a structured system to pull data from various sources and draft.

‘But the key for me is that AI is an aid to human reporting.

‘It will reduce the time it takes, increase some of the information available, but we know AI has faults and it can make things up.

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PREDICTABLE: After British Ambassador’s Connections to Epstein Unearthed, Christopher Steele Blames Russia

This is no surprise.  After the British Ambassador was found connected to Jeffrey Epstein, Christopher Steele came out and blamed Russia. 

These people have no shame. 

We learned last week that pedophile Jeffrey Epstein had a very close relationship with the Rothschilds.

After it became clear that Epstein was connected to the Brits and the Rothschilds, the man behind the Russia collusion lie pulled out his old playbook and claimed that Epstein was connected to the Russians.

Christopher Steele attempted to draw attention to the bigger picture behind the Epstein files, that a kompromat operation was hatched between Russian intelligence and Jeffrey Epstein. This alleged blackmail scheme was plotted solely to target some of the well-known Western elites…

…Speaking with Times Radio, Steele mentioned, “My understanding from sources in America is that they have tracked Epstein’s activities and operations back to the 1970s, as far back as that.” Steele’s U.S. sources claim that Epstein was likely recruited by Russia after his involvement with organized crime in Brighton Beach, New York.

At this point who would ever believe any Steele accusations concerning Russia?

In July, Susan Kokinda from Promethean Action delved into the deeper implications of Jeffrey Epstein’s ties with influential figures like British Ambassador Lord Peter Mandelson and the underlying financial schemes perpetuated by the elite.  This was before these recent Epstein files were released.

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