Currently pending in the House of Lords, an online security bill touches end-to-end encryption and the chances of a compromise with WhatsApp are dwindling.
End of the celebrations after the coronation of King Charles III. Political life in the UK continues, starting with the regulation of digital life. An end-to-end encryption measure in the online security law could lead to WhatsApp’s withdrawal from the area, reports The Guardian.
The UK government risks getting into a fight with WhatsApp, ministers have warned, as the bill is pending in the House of Lords. Four years of work, eight state secretaries and five prime ministers were involved in drafting the more than 250-page text.
Affecting all aspects of online life, this bill aims to make end-to-end encryption less opaque. The aim would be to enable the detection of illegal content within encrypted exchanges.
The text thus gives Ofcom (the UK telecoms regulator) the power to impose new tools on social networks to fight terrorism or child pornography content, with fines of up to 10% of global sales for services that don’t comply .
Apart from the fact that in the case of WhatsApp, which secures its users’ data using end-to-end encryption, it is technically impossible to read users’ messages without breaking its original promise: to protect the confidentiality of exchanges.
“The bill provides no explicit protection for encryption,” WhatsApp said in an April 17 open letter.
A “deliberate ambiguity”
Last March, WhatsApp head Will Cathcart said he had no intention of making its current system worse and said he was shocked by the bill.
A Home Office spokesman told the Guardian that they “support strong encryption, but this must not come at the expense of public safety”. And tries to mitigate: “The Online Security Act in no way constitutes a ban on end-to-end encryption, nor will it require encryption weakening services.”
The speaker urges platforms to use special technologies or develop new technologies to accurately identify child pornography or terrorist content.
Richard Allan, a member of the chamber who served as head of policy at Meta (Facebook’s parent company) until 2019, denounced “deliberate ambiguity”.
“They cautiously say they have no intention of banning end-to-end encryption (…) but at the same time refuse to confirm that they could not do so under the new powers the bill provides ‘ Richard Allan points out to the Guardian.
In his opinion, the other possible scenario would be that the government comes clean and states that it intends to limit end-to-end encryption to allow for an “orderly transition”.
However, according to Politico, the Department of Science, Innovation and Technology wants to find a favorable outcome between the different parties and is currently holding talks “with anyone who wants to discuss it”.