WhatsApp and other messaging services have banded together to oppose Britain’s proposed internet safety legislation, which would require tech companies to break end-to-end encryption in private messages.
According to an open letter signed by Meta-owned WhatsApp, Signal, and five other apps, the law could give a “unelected official the power to weaken the privacy of billions of people around the world.
The original intent of the British Internet Safety Bill was to establish one of the strictest regulatory frameworks for controlling websites like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.
In order to protect free expression, a necessity to stop “legal but dangerous information” was deleted from the recommendations in November. Instead, the emphasis was placed on illegal content, particularly that which was related to children’s safety.
The law “in no way represented a ban on end-to-end encryption, nor would it require services to weaken encryption,” according to the British government.
But, it wants the regulator Ofcom to have the authority to order platforms to employ approved technology or attempt to create new technology to detect child sex abuse content.
The signatories of the letter claimed that this was incompatible with end-to-end encryption, which allows only the sender and recipient to read a message.
The bill provides no explicit encryption protection, and if implemented as written, could empower Ofcom to try to force proactive scanning of private messages on end-to-end encrypted communication services, effectively nullifying the purpose of end-to-end encryption and jeopardising the privacy of all users,” they said.
According to them, the bill poses a “unprecedented threat to the privacy, safety, and security of every UK citizen and the people with whom they communicate around the world,” while also “empowering hostile governments who may seek to draught copy-cat laws.”
We support strong encryption, but this cannot come at the expense of public safety, a British government spokesperson said.
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