UK May Attempt to End Anonymity in Bitcoin Transactions, May Cause a Rise in the Use of DarkWallet

A proposed UK bill could end anonymity in Bitcoin transactions by logging of all content accessed via UK ISPs. This will leave only services such as DarkWallet as truly anonymous options, placing them firmly in the sights of UK lawmakers seeking ‘the legal power to break into the encrypted communications of suspected terrorists.’
Speaking in the wake of the Paris terrorist attacks at the Charlie Hebdo offices and a kosher supermarket, UK Prime Minister David Cameron has called for further powers to assist the police and intelligence services to track and monitor online and mobile communications in the UK.
This has been a hot topic in the country for a number of years following an earlier version of this bill, dubbed ‘the snooper’s charter’ that was proposed in 2012. It included terms that would have forced ISPs to log and archive details of all content accessed, and all online communications, for a period of twelve months for every user.
The previous bills were met with vocal opposition from the British public and figures such as Wikipedia’s Jimmy Wales, but more importantly, a Europe-wide version of the legislation was quashed in the European Court of Justice in 2014 on the basis that it ‘interferes in a particularly serious manner with the fundamental rights to respect for private life and to the protection of personal data.”

This post was published at Coin Telegraph on 2015-01-13.