The UK is Trying to Stop Facebook's End-to-End Encryption

Fnord666 writes:

The UK Is Trying to Stop Facebook's End-to-End Encryption

The UK is planning a new attack on end-to-end encryption, with the Home Office set to spearhead efforts designed to discourage Facebook from further rolling out the technology to its messaging apps.

Home Secretary Priti Patel is planning to deliver a keynote speech at a child protection charity's event focused on exposing the perceived ills of end-to-end encryption and asking for stricter regulation of the technology. At the same time a new report will say that technology companies need to do more to protect children online.

[...] The Home Office's move comes as Facebook plans to roll out end-to-end encryption across all its messaging platforms-including Messenger and Instagram-which has sparked a fierce debate in the UK and elsewhere over the supposed risks the technology poses to children.

[...] An early draft of the report, seen by WIRED, says that increased usage of end-to-end encryption would protect adults' privacy at the expense of children's safety, and that any strategy adopted by technology companies to mitigate the effect of end-to-end encryption will "almost certainly be less effective than the current ability to scan for harmful content."

The report also suggests that the government devise regulation "expressly targeting encryption", in order to prevent technology companies from "engineer[ing] away" their ability to police illegal communications.[...]

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