Britain’s home secretary has been building an international alliance to take on Facebook over its plans to introduce default end-to-end encryption for its messaging apps.
Suella Braverman has warned Mark Zuckerberg, the boss of Meta, Facebook’s parent company, that “there will be no let-up” amid fears about the technology’s use by pedophiles and other criminals.
End-to-end encryption stops anyone but the sender and recipient of a message seeing it, meaning the companies cannot police the content, making it an ideal tool for criminals. Meta will introduce it on Facebook Messenger and Instagram Direct chats this year.
Braverman spoke last week to Alejandro Mayorkas, the US homeland security secretary, to enlist his support for the campaign, which has the backing of Britain’s Five Eyes security partners, including Australia and New Zealand.
A government source said: “Meta’s introduction of end-to-end encryption without the safeguards which are currently in place will provide an online haven for pedophiles, organised criminals and fraudsters. It’s crucial for the safety of our children and citizens that they think again. The whole of government is clear about the terrible threat that this poses and the home secretary and security minister are pushing hard to drive this message home to Meta. There will be no let-up.”
Meta scans all messages on its platforms and is obliged by US law to report any suspected child abuse activity, including obscene images, to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. Of the 32 million referrals made by tech companies last year, more than 21 million came from Facebook and just over five million were from Instagram.