spot_img

Facebook Encryption May Hinder Fight Against Child Abuse

Share post:

UK Home Secretary Priti Patel will speak at a program organized by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) and warn against Facebook’s plans to introduce encryption on its messaging services. Patel warns Facebook’s plans for encryption to protect user privacy could jeopardize ongoing work to tackle child abuse.

In her speech, the Home Secretary is expected to call for Facebook to be more considerate of public safety when making changes to its platform, including the impact on children.

While messaging platforms are not end-to-end encrypted, tech giants like Facebook can use automatic scanning of their users posts to identify the sharing of known child abuse images and expose questionable use of private messages.

Only one of Facebook’s major messaging platforms, WhatsApp, uses end-to-end encryption by default. However, the company plans to extend the feature on its other platforms, such as Facebook Messenger and Instagram.

The NSPCC worries that introducing encryption as planned would render scanning tools used to detect offenders “useless” and is calling on Facebook to reconsider its stance.

Patel states that “Offending is continuing, and will continue – these images of children being abused just continue to proliferate, even right now while we are speaking. But the company intends to blind itself to this problem through end-to-end encryption which prevents all access to messaging content.”

For more information, read the <a href=”https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-56795852″ target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>original story</a> on the BBC

spot_img

SUBSCRIBE NOW

Related articles

Microsoft announces enhanced security feature for OneNote

Microsoft has released further information on the increased security measures it is deploying for OneNote in order to...

Russian hacker group steals Emails of NATO officials and diplomats

Since February 2023, a Russian hacking gang known as TA473 or 'Winter Vivern' has targeted unpatched Zimbra endpoints...

Canadian cybersecurity accelerator counts its accomplishments

A Canadian university-associated business accelerator for helping early-stage cybersecurity companies says its first two years of operation have been more than satisfactory. The Rogers Cybersecure Catalyst Accelerator has had “an incredible impact” on Canadian cybersecurity entrepreneurs and founders, executive director Charles Finlay said this week in the first report on the program’s progress. Despite having

Crackdown on ransomware gangs yet to show an impact: OpenText

In its annual cybersecurity report OpenText also looked at malware, phishing and infec

Become a member

New, Relevant Tech Stories. Our article selection is done by industry professionals. Our writers summarize them to give you the key takeaways