Protect Americans' privacy — don't follow the UK's surveillance lead

I'm writing as a constituent concerned about where the United Kingdom is headed on digital policy, and about the risk of the United States drifting in the same direction. Consider what's happening in Britain right now. Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy announced in Parliament on September 8 that the government plans to mandate scanning software on every smartphone and tablet, blocking "adult content" by default — meaning adults who won't hand over ID get treated like children on devices they own (https://reclaimthenet.org/uk-plans-on-device-scanning). This builds on the Online Safety Act, whose age-verification rules already force citizens to upload government IDs or credit card details to visit ordinary websites, creating honeypots of sensitive data waiting to be breached. Sites like Pornhub have simply blocked UK users rather than comply. Meanwhile, the UK is weighing rules that would compel YouTube and other platforms to give preferential placement to state-backed media like the BBC in feeds and search results — government hand-picking whose speech gets amplified. Privacy and digital rights organizations, from EFF to Big Brother Watch, have repeatedly warned these measures weaken encryption and normalize mass surveillance of ordinary people. Protecting children online is a genuinely noble goal, and I share it. But weakening everyone's privacy isn't the answer. Less invasive approaches already exist: parental controls parents choose for their kids' devices, targeted enforcement against the criminals who exploit children, and platform-level safety tools that don't require ID databases or scanning every adult's phone. What happens abroad matters here. If the US absorbs these norms, the privacy of every American is at stake. Please oppose any effort to import UK-style age-verification mandates, mandatory device scanning, or government-directed content ranking into US law. Thank you for your time and your service.