The UK is planning a new end-to-end encryption attack, with the Home Office ready to boost efforts designed to deter Facebook from further launching technology into its messaging apps.
Interior Minister Priti Patel plans to deliver a keynote speech at a child protection charity event focused on exposing the perceived ills of end-to-end encryption and calling for stricter regulation of technology. At the same time, a new report will say that technology companies need to do more to protect children online.
Patel will be the head of a April 19 roundtable organized by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC), according to a draft invitation seen by WIRED. The event is expected to be deeply critical of the encryption standard, making it more difficult for researchers and technology companies to monitor interpersonal communications and detect illicit content or childcare, including horror images. or child abuse.
End-to-end encryption works by ensuring communications between those involved; only the sender and the receiver of messages can see what they are saying and the platforms that provide the technology cannot access the content of the messages. Technology has become increasingly standard in recent years with WhatsApp and Signal through end-to-end encryption to protect people’s privacy.
The Home Office decision comes as Facebook plans to roll out end-to-end encryption across all its messaging platforms – including Messenger and Instagram – which has sparked heated debate in the UK and elsewhere about the alleged risks. that technology represents for children.
During the event, the NSPCC will present a report on end-to-end encryption by PA Consulting, a British company that has advised the UK Department of Digital Culture Media and Sports (DCMS) on the upcoming online security regulation . A first draft of the report, seen by WIRED, says that greater use of end-to-end encryption would protect the privacy of adults at the expense of child safety and that any strategy adopted by technology companies to mitigate the effect of -end-end encryption “will almost certainly be less effective than current ability to scan harmful content”
The report also suggests that the government identify a regulation “specifically aimed at encryption” to prevent technology companies from being “engineers”.[ing] their ability to control illegal communications. It is recommended that the forthcoming online safety law (which will impose a duty of care on online platforms) require technology companies to share data on child abuse online, rather than voluntarily.
The online security bill is expected to require companies whose services use end-to-end encryption to demonstrate the effectiveness of disseminating harmful content to their platforms or the risk of being fined for it. Ofcom communications authority, which will be responsible for enforcing the rules. As a last resort, Ofcom could require a company to use automated systems to remove illegal content from its services.
The NSPCC says this configuration does not go far enough in controlling encryption: in a statement released last week, the charity urged Digital Secretary Oliver Dowden to strengthen the regulatory proposal, preventing platforms from they exploded from end to end. end encryption until they can demonstrate that they can safeguard the safety of children. Facebook is currently addressing the circulation of child sexual abuse content on WhatsApp by removing accounts that show banned images in their profile pictures or groups whose names suggest illegal activity. WhatsApp says it bans more than 300,000 monthly accounts suspected of sharing child sexual abuse material.
“Ofcom will have to meet a series of tests before it can act on a regulated platform,” says Andy Burrows, NSPCC’s head of online child safety policy. “It’s about being able to require evidence of serious and sustained abuse, which will be virtually very difficult to do, as end-to-end encryption will eliminate a significant amount of the flow of reports.”