Confidentiality of millions or children's safety - what will tip the moral scales?
Meta* has announced that it has begun enabling E2EE encryption by default for all Messenger users, which should have a positive impact on the privacy of the latter, but may cause a number of complaints from the governments of many countries.
The introduction of E2EE is gaining more and more approval from both technology companies and human rights activists. This is largely due to growing initiatives in the UK and other countries aimed at making it easier for law enforcement agencies to access encrypted user communications.
Meta said it expects to complete the process and transition all Messenger users to encrypted chats by the end of the year. The company has been working on this project since 2019. To implement it, more than 100 platform functions had to be rebuilt.
“The goal is to strengthen the protections already in place and give people additional confidence that their private messages will remain private,” said Timothy Bike, product manager at Messenger.
Meanwhile, the UK has long been pressuring tech companies to grant access to encrypted communications under the guise of protecting children under the online safety bill. The government insists that this is necessary to combat the distribution of child pornography and the recruitment of minors into criminal gangs.
Australia also raised concerns that Meta's plans to implement E2EE on Messenger and Instagram would prevent existing technology from being used to detect child sexual abuse material.
However, privacy advocates believe that law enforcement agencies have other ways to detect criminal content on the Internet. They call on governments not to sacrifice the safety of millions of law-abiding users, even for the benefit of minors.
Discussions have not yet acquired a sharp character, since the bills in the EU and the UK are under discussion. But even if they are adopted, they will certainly face legal challenges and criticism from tech giants like Meta.
Meta* has announced that it has begun enabling E2EE encryption by default for all Messenger users, which should have a positive impact on the privacy of the latter, but may cause a number of complaints from the governments of many countries.
The introduction of E2EE is gaining more and more approval from both technology companies and human rights activists. This is largely due to growing initiatives in the UK and other countries aimed at making it easier for law enforcement agencies to access encrypted user communications.
Meta said it expects to complete the process and transition all Messenger users to encrypted chats by the end of the year. The company has been working on this project since 2019. To implement it, more than 100 platform functions had to be rebuilt.
“The goal is to strengthen the protections already in place and give people additional confidence that their private messages will remain private,” said Timothy Bike, product manager at Messenger.
Meanwhile, the UK has long been pressuring tech companies to grant access to encrypted communications under the guise of protecting children under the online safety bill. The government insists that this is necessary to combat the distribution of child pornography and the recruitment of minors into criminal gangs.
Australia also raised concerns that Meta's plans to implement E2EE on Messenger and Instagram would prevent existing technology from being used to detect child sexual abuse material.
However, privacy advocates believe that law enforcement agencies have other ways to detect criminal content on the Internet. They call on governments not to sacrifice the safety of millions of law-abiding users, even for the benefit of minors.
Discussions have not yet acquired a sharp character, since the bills in the EU and the UK are under discussion. But even if they are adopted, they will certainly face legal challenges and criticism from tech giants like Meta.
