Priti Patel tells Zuckerberg: Facebook encryption threatens safety

UK's Indian-origin home secretary Priti Patel on Friday issued an open letter to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, alongside her counterparts in US and Australia, to warn him that social media giant's end-to-end encryption of messs across its platforms puts public safety at risk. senior-most minister in UK Cabinet stressed that while strong encryption was important for privacy, re was a need to balance data security with law enforcement requirements.

"Risks to public safety from Facebook's proposals are exacerbated in context of a single platform that would combine inaccessible messaging services with open profiles, providing unique routes for prospective offenders to identify and groom our children," tes letter.

Citizens at risk

Companies should t deliberately design ir systems to preclude any form of access to content, even for preventing or investigating most serious crimes it said.

"This puts our citizens and societies at risk by severely eroding a company's ability to detect and respond to illegal content and activity, such as child sexual exploitation and abuse, terrorism, and foreign versaries' attempts to undermine democratic values and institutions, preventing prosecution of offenders and safeguarding of victims. It also impedes law enforcement's ability to investigate se and or serious crimes," it ds.

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letter calling out Facebook

letter, also signed by US Attorney General William P Barr, US (Acting) Secretary of Homeland Security Kevin K McAleenan and Australian Minister for Home Affairs Peter Dutton, calls on Facebook to ensure that any future encryption plans do t le to a reduction of user safety and include a means for lawful access to content of communications to protect citizens.

"Security enhancements to virtual world should t make us more vulnerable in physical world. We must find a way to balance need to secure data with public safety and need for law enforcement to access information y need to safeguard public, investigate crimes, and prevent future criminal activity," it tes.

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"t doing so hinders our law enforcement ncies' ability to stop criminals and abusers in ir tracks," it said.
Respects law enforcement

Facebook said that it strongly believes that people have right to have a private conversation online, wherever y are in world but also respects and supports role law enforcement has in keeping people safe.

"Ahe of our plans to bring more security and privacy to our messaging apps, we are consulting closely with child safety experts, governments and techlogy companies and devoting new teams and sophisticated techlogy so we can use all information available to us to help keep people safe," a spokesperson said.

open letter came alongside a data access agreement between US and UK signed this week, designed to remove barriers to cross-border surveillance. It would allow British law-enforcement ncies to demand from US tech firms data relating to terrorists, child-sexual abusers, and or serious criminals.

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Process of requesting data

It is hoped it will dramatically speed up investigations previously, process of requesting data from US firms could take anything from six months to two years. Under new agreement that could be cut to a matter of weeks or even days. But messs sent over services using end-to-end encryption, such as Facebook-owned WhatsApp, will remain unreable. Following scandals over misuse of personal data in recent years, social network has enhanced encryption to furr bolster data security. However, open letter warned that this would come at a heavy price.

"So far thing we have seen from Facebook reassures me that ir plans for end-to-end encryption will t act as barrier to identification and pursuit of criminals operating on ir platforms," letter warns.

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