Government puts Facebook under pressure to stop end-to-end encryption over child abuse risks
Home secretary Priti Patel uses a conference organised by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) to warn that end-to-end encryption will severely erode the ability of tech companies to police illegal content, including child abuse and terrorism.
The Home Office estimates that 12 million reports of potential child abuse could be lost if Facebook introduces end-to-end encryption on Facebook Messenger and Instagram, significantly increasing the risk of child exploitation or other serious harm.
End-to-end encryption is widely used by internet messaging services such as Signal, Telegram, email services including Protonmail and mailbox.org, and Facebook’s own WhatsApp messaging service, to protect the privacy of personal data and messages.
Source: Government puts Facebook under pressure to stop end-to-end encryption over child abuse risks
