The British government partly renounced, on Wednesday September 6, a key and very controversial measure of its online security bill, the Online Safety Bill. Currently being discussed at third reading by the House of Lords of the British Parliament, the text provides for a series of measures aimed at protecting minors, and in particular the obligation for messaging operators to proactively scan their users’ messages to detect content. child pornography.
However, this detection is technically impossible for messaging secured by so-called “end-to-end” encryption. This makes a message unreadable, except for its sender and its recipient: even the messaging operator cannot access its content. All major messaging apps, like WhatsApp or Signal, use this technology, validated and recommended by the overwhelming majority of computer security experts, to protect their users from hacks and surveillance tools.
A senior Conservative member of the House of Lords, Stephen Parkinson, finally announced on Wednesday that the British regulator, the Office of Communications (or Ofcom), would not apply this provision ” only when [les détections automatiques] will be technically feasible and would meet the minimum criteria for detecting child pornography content”. A deadline in the form of a waiver: the technical feasibility of this tool has been, since the start of the debates, a point highly contested by the majority of experts.
“A welcome clarification”
Messaging operators had strongly protested against the bill, saying in April, in an open letter signed by the chief executive officers (CEOs) of WhatsApp, Signal and Wire, among others, “that no company, government or individual should have the power to read your personal messages”showing their willingness to continue “to defend encryption technology”. WhatsApp had threatened to pull out of the UK market altogether if the law was passed as it stood.
“It’s not a victory, but it’s not a defeat either”has esteemed Meredith Whitakerthe CEO of Signal, who regrets that at this stage the text of the law does not reflect this change of position more clearly. “Is that all we wanted? No, but it’s a welcome clarification, and it opens the door to changing the text of the law in the final stages of the debates. “WhatsApp will never sabotage its encryption and will remain vigilant to any threats against it”, added Will Wathcartthe CEO of messaging.