The government has launched a campaign criticising Meta for planned encryption of Facebook messages.
Facebook’s owner Meta has hit back at a new government campaign strongly critical of its plans to encrypt messages.
Protecting messages with end-to-end-encryption (e2ee) would mean that they could only be read by sender and recipient.
The government says this hides child exploitation, abuse and grooming.
Meta argues that encryption protects users from invasion of privacy.
« We don’t think people want us reading their private messages », the firm said.
« The overwhelming majority of Brits already rely on apps that use encryption to keep them safe from hackers, fraudsters and criminals », it added.
It said that it had spent the last five years developing robust safety measures to prevent, detect and combat abuse while maintaining online security.
« As we roll out end-to-end encryption, we expect to continue providing more reports to law enforcement than our peers due to our industry leading work on keeping people safe », it said.
But the plans mean hundreds of child abusers could escape punishment, according to the UK’s home secretary.
The new campaign was trailed in a speech by security minister Tom Tugendhat in May.
At the time he blamed Mark Zuckerberg for the plan – criticising what he called the « extraordinary moral choice » to expand encryption.
Meta – the American company of which Mr Zuckerberg is chief executive – has announced it will add e2ee to all Facebook messenger chats, by default, by the end of the year.
