The jeopardy of user safety seems to have turned into a serious fight in the UK. This fight has erupted from an ‘Online Safety Bill’ which is intended to protect children and adults by holding social media accounts for users’ safety. This Bill still doesn’t sound problematic, so what makes it so?
The catch is the power that this bill gives to non-elected persons of the government to abuse their power to moderate social media platforms. One of the clauses of the bill says that an end-to-end encrypted messaging service is required to scan a user’s message for child sex abuse material, which can affect the privacy and security of users. End-to-end encrypted message service application’s leaders have together signed an open letter asking the UK government to urgently rethink it. This open letter has been signed and shared by Signal, Viber, WhatsApp, Element, Wire, Thermal, and OPTF/Session leaders.
WhatsApp has shared this open letter blog post link with a post on Twitter which says “We are proud to stand with others pushing back on a law that threatens UK citizens’ right to safety and privacy”. If we were to think of the extreme Signal and WhatsApp has previously stated that they would cease their operation in the UK rather than weaken their encryption, which means only certain changes in the law can only help to resolve it. If laws somehow curtail the extreme power to scan the user’s chat and implement it on the basis of certain conditions it can be a bit favorable for the government, users, and platforms.
Readers like you help support The Tech Outlook. When you make a purchase using links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. We cannot guarantee the Product information shown is 100% accurate and we advise you to check the product listing on the original manufacturer website. Thetechoutlook is not responsible for price changes carried out by retailers. The discounted price or deal mentioned in this item was available at the time of writing and may be subject to time restrictions and/or limited unit availability. Amazon and the Amazon logo are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates Read More