The UK is planning a major PR attack on end-to-end encryption that could blow over internationally. The planned campaign aims to convince people to give up privacy by instilling fear.
In the UK, the government is planning a PR offensive aimed against end-to-end encryption of messages. Such encryption also occasionally comes under scrutiny in our country. End-to-end encryption is a form of encryption in which messages leave the sender’s device encrypted and are not decrypted until they reach the recipient. WhatsApp, Signal and Telegram, among others, use end-to-end encryption, and Facebook Messenger will also get encryption next year.
The standard implies that messages in transit are unreadable by anyone, including the service provider. Even WhatsApp, in other words, cannot read what is in messages on its servers. The standard is self-evident from a privacy standpoint: sending a message without end-to-end encryption is like sending a letter in a transparent envelope: anyone can then read along. Think not only of the service provider, but also hackers, the government or employees with bad intentions.
From encryption to child abuse
Security and spy agencies, and by extension governments, are not always fans of end-to-end encryption. After all, without the standard, they can see messages cleanly; with it, that becomes impossible. The UK now wants to get public opinion on its side in a campaign against encryption.
To this end, the UK will spread fear. The UK assumes that most people do not know end-to-end encryption and thus can be easily convinced. Specifically, end-to-end encryption is portrayed as a tool that allows child abuse. When everyone enjoys privacy, criminals can also benefit from it. The UK wants to argue that the entire population should then give up the right to privacy to make crime fighting easier. For emotional reasons, the focus is on child abuse.
Debate preventive poisoning
Thus, the UK seems to want to create a false narrative. Either you are against end-to-end encryption and against child abuse, or you are for encryption and for abuse. The real debate is about privacy versus security. Rolling Stone knows on the authority of slides it was able to review that the U.K. government absolutely wants to avoid having the discussion that way.
The plans are interesting because they provide insight into how anti-privacy groups seek to turn an honest debate into a discussion beside the issue, with the pro-privacy camp suddenly becoming the pro-child abuse camp.
End-to-end as standard
End-to-end encryption is considered an essential component for secure communications by technology giants worldwide, though. This is why most quality chat services use it, and why Microsoft also integrates encryption into Teams. By the way, the encryption concerns only the content of messages. Metadata, such as who communicated with whom and when, remains accessible (by analogy with the address data on an envelope).