United States: The tech giant Meta has stated that all conversations on Facebook and Messenger will be automatically encrypted.
Only the sender and recipient can read calls and messages that are encrypted end-to-end (E2EE). While encrypted messages have always been an option, they will now always be the default setting.
The UK government and police are among the critics who argue that the switch to default encryption will make it more difficult to identify child sexual abuse on Messenger.
According to Ms. Loredana Crisan, the head of Messenger, “unless you choose to report a message to us,” nobody, not even Meta, can see what is sent or said since the switch to encryption was made.
The company had worked with outside experts, academics, advocates, and governments to identify risks to “ensure that privacy and safety go hand-in-hand,” Ms. Crisan wrote.
After working together to address other online harms, Mr. James Cleverly, the UK Home Secretary, expressed his “deep disappointment” in Meta’s decision.
“We’ll continue to work closely with them (Meta) to keep children safe online, but we must be honest that in our view, this is a significant step back,” Mr. Cleverly said. The National Crime Agency’s director general for threats, Mr. James Babbage, was also very critical.
“It is hugely disappointing that Meta is choosing to roll out end-to-end encryption on Facebook Messenger. Today our role in protecting children from sexual abuse and exploitation just got harder,” Mr. Babbage remarked.
It is anticipated that, at some point in the upcoming year, messages on Instagram, which is also owned by Meta, will automatically encrypt them.
Meta says that people will know when their chats are upgraded and become encrypted because they will be prompted to set up a recovery method to be able to restore their messages if they lose, change, or add a device.
