The National Crime Agency has said that end-to-end encryption risks “turning the lights out” for law enforcers trying to prevent child abuse, after the UK data watchdog said failure to introduce strongly encrypted messaging poses a risk to children. The NCA was responding to an intervention by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) in the debate over end-to-end encryption, which is taking place against a backdrop of plans by Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook Messenger and Instagram apps to incorporate end-to-end encryption on messages next year. He pointed to other methods used by law enforcement including infiltrating abuse rings, listening to reports from children targeted by abusers and using evidence from convicted abusers. Child safety campaigners have said the encryption plans would prevent law enforcement and tech platforms from seeing messages by ensuring that only the sender and recipient can view their content – a process known as end-to-end encryption. This week a new government-backed campaign was launched saying strong encryption risked “blindfolding” social media companies to abuse.

Source: The Guardian January 22, 2022 18:55 UTC