Dame Cressida Dick, U.K. Metropolitan Police commissioner, has accused tech giants of making it harder to find and stop terrorists.
Dame Cressida added that the tech giants’ focus on end-to-end encryption made it impossible for police to do their job “in some cases.”
They emphasized that advances in communications technologies meant that terrorists could now recruit “anyone, anywhere and at any time” via social media and the Internet.
On Wednesday, Home Secretary Priti Patel launched new funding for technology to focus on protecting children and also called on technology companies to prioritize user safety over profits.
Cybersecurity experts, however, are pessimistic that the solutions the government wants are possible in the first place.
End-to-end encryption is a privacy feature that makes it impossible for anyone but the sender and recipient to read messages sent online. While technology companies like Facebook claim that using such technology would protect users’ privacy, many governments, including the US, UK, and Australia, have strongly objected to the idea since 2019.
Cybersecurity and privacy experts believe the views of Ms Patel and Dame Cressida’s views are a response to Apple’s decision to delay a plan to scan iPhones for CSAM earlier this month.
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