Is Facebook obstructing the war on criminals?
Charities accuse its encryption of ‘blindfolding’ investigators
Balancing the rights of users with the powers police need to catch criminals has been one of the most contentious debates in the internet age. It’s about to spark fresh anger on both sides of the question as a coalition of charities prepare to release adverts accusing Facebook of “blindfolding” the police in their efforts to catch paedophiles.
Drawn up by advertising agency M&C Saatchi, the ads will warn that Facebook’s plans to introduce end-to-end encryption (E2EE) on voice and video calls made through its Messenger app will make it impossible for investigators to hack phones they suspect are being used by gangs spreading images of child abuse.
In E2EE, messages are encrypted on the sender’s system or device, and can be decrypted only by the intended recipient. As the message travels to its destination, it can’t be read or changed by anyone – whether that’s the company providing the service, or law-enforcement authorities investigating a possible crime. This weakens the chance of convicting paedophiles because exposing the ‘grooming’ messages they send to victims are vital in proving guilt.
Facebook insists this level of encryption is needed to preserve the privacy of its users. It already provides E2EE on Whatsapp, as do Apple on imessage and Zoom for video chats. It’s stronger than
It weakens the chance of convicting paedophiles because exposing messages they send to victims is vital
default encryption, which does allow messages to be intercepted as they’re being delivered.
But pressure against E2EE is growing from a number of sources. Home Secretary Priti Patel looks set to support the adverts, and has launched the Safety Tech Challenge Fund ( www.safetytechnetwork.org. uk) which will pay tech experts to develop new systems that allow the detection of child sexual abuse without breaking end-to-end encryption.
In February, Rob Jones, director of threat leadership at NCA, called E2EE a “disaster for child safety and law enforcement”, and accused tech companies of placing “the pursuit of profit above the safety of the people on their platform”.
Met Police chief Cressida Dick, writing in the Telegraph to mark the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, said that advances in communication technologies meant terrorists could now “recruit anyone, anywhere and at any time” through social media and the internet.
However, cyber-security experts say that paedophiles and terrorists can be identified by tracking their behaviour, without having to access files on their phones. Alec Muffett, head of the team that built Facebook Messenger’s E2EE, told the BBC: “If you’ve got a Facebook account of a middle-aged male who is randomly messaging a dozen teenagers out of the blue, then you have a potentially suspicious activity. It might be
innocent, but it is certainly an issue worth delving into.”
Other specialists say that you can’t detect images of child abuse without breaking E2EE, and that Patel’s fund is seeking to achieve the impossible. One expert, speaking anonymously to the BBC, said: “You can change the law of the land, but you can’t change the law of science – there’s no way of allowing the mass scanning of devices without undermining the protections of end-to-end encryption”.
It’s building to one of the biggest clashes between the Government and tech giants in modern times. What the adverts show is that those against E2EE are keen to get public opinion on their side. Should this expand the debate from computing magazines to tabloids and radio phone-ins, tech firms will need to work a lot harder to justify their position.