Regulator opens door to crackdown on encrypted apps

BRITAIN’S privacy watchdog has given a boost to a government crackdown on big tech that would allow officials to lawfully snoop on encrypted apps.

In a submission to MPS overseeing the Online Safety Bill, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) said that “tailored and proportionate” tools could be used to monitor encrypted apps while ensuring user privacy.

In the paper, which the regulator said did not represent final policy, the ICO maintained it was opposed to the introduction of “widespread” backdoors into messaging services.

The statement comes amid a debate over the benefits and drawbacks of “end-toend encrypted” messaging apps. These apps, such as Facebook-owned Whatsapp or Signal, use technology to scramble messages so they cannot be read by police or law enforcement. Police forces and the Home Office have said such apps allow terrorists or child abusers to act without the risk of having their messages intercepted.

While the ICO is in charge of ensuring consumer privacy is defended in Britain, it stopped short of pushing back on the Government’s efforts prise open big tech’s encrypted apps.

The watchdog said new types of encryption that make it possible to detect dangerous messages or images without unscrambling the code could provide a way of protecting privacy. The ICO also sug- gested technology could be used that, under current lawful access rules, would give security services permission to bug a users’ phone to read encrypted posts from the device.

Stephen Bonner, a deputy commissioner at the watchdog, said: “What has been ... encouraging is strong messaging from the Government that they are not seeking to add backdoors – systemic accessing of everyone’s data – that is not the right way. But in exceptional circumstances there are legitimate and proportionate reasons to have access.”

Critics argue that while such snooping does not break the encryption within an app, it provides a “backdoor by another name”.

Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, has launched a tech fund hunting for experts who can design tools to monitor for child abuse content on encrypted apps while ensuring “end to end encryption is not compromised”.