A new law to speed up the installation of 5G technology was quietly passed on March 23.
This law was passed in the US, not the UK, after going through Congress for a year. It’s intended to ensure the security of 5G infrastructure, not to speed up the installation.
5G technology is dangerous for human health.
This is not true.
A Facebook post from a local group for Street and Glastonbury claims that a new law was passed “while everyone was distracted”, which will supposedly “speed up the installation of 5G and protect profits!” The post says that the “SECURE 5G AND BEYOND ACT OF 2020” was “signed into law 116-129 on 3-23-2020”.
In fact this is a US law, which has no power in the UK. (There is a clue in the date, which follows the American style of putting the month number before the day number.)
It is called the “Secure 5G and Beyond Act of 2020” and it is about ensuring the security of 5G technology in the US and globally. It requires the President to develop a strategy for making this happen. One of its stated aims is also to “protect the competitiveness of United States companies” working on 5G.
It's worth bearing in mind that while the Act was signed into law during the coronavirus outbreak – on 23 March – it was going through the US legislative process for nearly a year. It was first introduced into the US Senate in March 2019, and was scrutinised by lawmakers in the months that followed.
The post goes on to make several further claims about the supposed dangers of 5G technology, which are also not true. The false rumour that 5G radio waves pose a risk to human health is a common conspiracy theory, which we have written about many times before.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as false because the law is an American one, and there’s no evidence 5G harms health.
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