I left the UK specifically because of the UK government trying to mess with encryption in a very stupid way (amongst other things), with an act of Parliament that violated EU law: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Investigatory_Powers_Act_201...

I am surprised to see this point being made. The government has one of the worst records on data privacy of all democracies. It's laughable to think they won't proceed with this and go further, again, before long.

hahaha - the UK government has been insrumental in paving the way in 'banning encryption' and other such laws.

Thankfully they (UK Government) has proven over and over again that they are pretty inept when it comes to doing much with technology. I've worked on a number of Government projects including the recent Test and Trace debacle and they are always a shit-show.

I'd agree that outsourced national infrastructure initiatives that are either ad hoc or politically-motivated tend to be debacular in their nature - but I have a sneaking suspicion the real power houses that focus on all thing cryptographical (ie. our security services) are possibly world-leading.

The concept of a multi-national bureaucracy that has a massive budget and little accountability has very little appeal to me.

I get that it enabled mobility for EU citizens and the potential for combating large scale problems like climate change, but with human nature being what it is corruption and overreach is unavoidable

Yep, the difference being that at least we might get a chance of influencing the governments approach; where as in Europe.. good luck.

>though our government hardly has the best record on data privacy.

especially since founding The 5-Eyes program in 1941

cf. https://www.eteknix.com/david-cameron-declares-war-encryptio...