The company behind the open-source blogging platform Ghost is moving its paid-for service out of the UK because of government plans to weaken protection for privacy and freedom of expression. (..)
At the beginning of May, Aral Balkan revealed that he would be moving his Ind.ie software project out of the country: “Following the election of a Tory government with a mandate to further mass surveillance, we’re leaving the UK to avoid the possibility of having to add backdoors to our products at Ind.ie.” Like O’Nolan, Balkan cited the abolition of the Human Rights Act as one reason for his decision, as well as plans to introduce the Snooper’s Charter and backdoors in messaging applications.
A few weeks later, Eris Industries became the second company to react to the new UK government and its plans. Eris is “free software that allows anyone to build their own secure, low-cost, run-anywhere data infrastructure using blockchain and smart contract technology.” The company’s move was prompted by the threat that new laws could require backdoors in its encryption technology.
Small independent companies from people with strong principles are only the beginning. Bigger companies will leave because being based in the UK (or the US) will cost them more and more money. Given the current reality of economic espionage being done by GCHQ and NSA I don’t see how most B2B companies will be able to be based in these countries and have clients abroad. (Especially given the fact that the UK wants to implement a law for mandatory backdoors to encrypted data.)
