Introduction
In the past few weeks, it has been reported that several messaging apps have considered leaving the UK. Meredith Whittaker, the president of Signal, stated that the organisation would ‘absolutely, 100% walk rather than ever undermine the trust that people place’ in the app.[1] Similar sentiments were expressed by Will Cathcart, Meta’s head of WhatsApp.[2]
These statements were expressed in the wake of the forthcoming Online Safety Bill (OSB). A ‘Frankenstein’s monster’ like legislation that has been in the works since 2019 and has been heavily criticised by many for its vague wording, its gray areas and its ultimate threat to people’s privacy.[3] The main concern of the messaging apps can be boiled down to one provision, which they claim can only be complied with if they removed end-to-end encryption (E2EE).[4]
This article will analyse the main concern surrounding the OSB and give reasons as to why everyone should be concerned about this.
What is end-to-end encryption?
Messaging apps, such as WhatsApp and Signal, are using E2EE to provide their users with a secure method of communication. The message is encrypted on the sender’s system or device and is sent out to the recipient. Only the intended recipient’s system or device can decrypt the data that has been received. This way, third parties are prevented from accessing and processing the information while it is sent from one device to the other, which essentially prevents service providers from sharing the content with public authorities.[5]
What has the OSB got to do with it?
The OSB was first introduced in order to put an end to the self-regulation era of service providers and to change the previous ‘laissez-faire’ attitude of the government towards big tech companies.[6] The aim of the Bill is to tackle a number of different harmful content on social media and hold the big tech companies accountable for the activities occurring on their platforms.[7]
The Bill does not explicitly ban or weaken E2EE. In fact, the government still maintains that ‘privacy and security are not mutually exclusive – we need both and we can have both and that is what this amendment delivers’.[8] Nonetheless, the provision in question requires service providers to use their best endeavours to deploy or develop new technologies for their platform to scan content for child sexual abuse material and other illegal content. These types of content would then be removed. This could potentially lead to messaging apps monitoring previously encrypted user messages in order to be compliant with the provision.
The OSB will be discussed in Parliament this summer. As it stands today, if the Bill came into force, it would give Ofcom significant new powers as the UK’s internet regulator and require service providers to deploy content moderation policies and hold them accountable with hefty fines if required (up to £18 million or 10% of global turnover).[9]
Why should we all care about this?
As mentioned already, with the weaking of E2EE, the OSB is a potential threat to everyone’s privacy, which is in itself concerning. However, there might be a larger problem. Considering that the last few conservative administrations have been trying to limit people’s civil liberties and their right to protest,[10] the weaking of E2EE at this time is alarming. Especially considering that apps such as WhatsApp have introduced the ‘communities’ feature that brings people in larger numbers together to both exchange ideas, but also to organise meetings and protests. Those communities form public forums or ‘public spheres’ such as Habermas imagined it, where public opinion can be formed and the expression of dissent facilitated. We have all seen the role that social media can play in political protests and revolutions such as the Arab Spring[11] and more recently, the protests of the women in Iran after the death of Mahsa Amini (or Jina, her Kurdish name).[12] It would not be surprising that governments would look into ways to limit the potential of those platforms and the threat they pose to the status quo. Removing E2EE would be an effective way to achieve this.
Another possible negative impact to consider is the threat to freedom of speech. This concern was raised by LGBTQ+ campaigners, claiming that this Bill would enable the introduction of censorship. ‘[…] its vague wording makes it easy for hate groups to put pressure on Silicon Valley tech companies to remove LGBTQ+ content and would set a worrying international standard’. This claim is not far-fetched, seeing that social media platforms such as YouTube were already accused of implementing policies that put content creators part of the LGBTQ+ community at a disadvantage by having their videos demonetized.[13]
The terms used in the OSB such as ‘harmful’ and even ‘illegal content’ are vague and could be abused. The understanding of these terms will be subjective and up for interpretation. What exactly ‘harmful’ or ‘illegal’ are, is always dependent of the beliefs of the people in charge. For example, in 2020, the government put environmental organisations such as Greenpeace and Extinction Rebellion on their Counter-Terrorism watch list.[14] Circling back to the concerns of LGBTQ+ campaigners, the fact that new legislations are currently introduced in several states in the US restricting minors from seeing drag shows makes it plain that in parts of the world, celebrating one’s identity is seen as ‘harmful’ to young people.[15] And considering the large fines that would loom over the service providers under the OSB, it can be assumed that they would err on the side of caution and censor any content that could be seen as harmful to minors by even the smallest group of the population.[16] If messaging apps are required to apply the content moderation expected in the OSB to their platforms and if these vague terms lead to the outcome described above, this would not only result in a considerable invasion of people’s privacy, but also potentially result in censorship in people’s private lives.
Conclusion
It is true, that the regulation of service providers should be considered seriously and it is true that an effective internet regulator with threatening corrective measures is needed to tackle the big issues surrounding the service providers and their platforms.
Yet, weakening E2EE is not the right way to achieve this, especially since two senior technical directors at the UK’s cyber intelligence agency have written a paper showing scientific ways to tackle children’s safety online without weakening E2EE.[17] These proposed avenues are certainly worth exploring.
Whittaker told the BBC that it was ‘magical thinking’ to believe there can be privacy ‘but only for the good guys’. ‘Encryption is either protecting everyone or it is broken for everyone’.[18]
[1] Dan Milmo, ‘Signal app warns it will quit UK if law weakens end-to-end encryption’ The Guardian (London, 24th February 2023) available at <https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/feb/24/signal-app-warns-it-will-quit-uk-if-law-weakens-end-to-end-encryption> accessed 5th April 2023.
[2] Alex Hern, ‘WhatsApp would not remove end-to-end encryption for UK law, says chief’ The Guardian (London, 9th March 2023) available at <https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/mar/09/whatsapp-end-to-end-encryption-online-safety-bill> accessed 5th April 2023.
[3] Morgan Meaker, ‘WhatsApp has started a fight with the UK about encryption’ (Wired, 9th March 2023) available at <https://www.wired.co.uk/article/whatsapp-online-safety-bill-encryption#:~:text=The%20head%20of%20the%20messaging,end%2Dto%2Dend%20encryption> accessed 5th April 2023; Mark Scott and Annabelle Dickson, ‘How UK’s Online Safety Bill fell victim to never-ending political crisis’ (Politico, 28th February 2023) available at <https://www.politico.eu/article/online-safety-bill-uk-westminster-politics/> accessed 5th April 2023.
[4] Alex Hern, ‘WhatsApp would not remove end-to-end encryption for UK law, says chief’ The Guardian (London, 9th March 2023) available at <https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/mar/09/whatsapp-end-to-end-encryption-online-safety-bill> accessed 5th April 2023; Morgan Meaker, ‘WhatsApp has started a fight with the UK about encryption’ (Wired, 9th March 2023) available at <https://www.wired.co.uk/article/whatsapp-online-safety-bill-encryption#:~:text=The%20head%20of%20the%20messaging,end%2Dto%2Dend%20encryption> accessed 5th April 2023.
[5] Ben Lutkevich, ‘End-to-end encryption (E2EE)’ (TechTarget, June 2021) available at <https://www.techtarget.com/searchsecurity/definition/end-to-end-encryption-E2EE> accessed 5th April 2023.
[6] Mark Scott and Annabelle Dickson, ‘How UK’s Online Safety Bill fell victim to never-ending political crisis’ (Politico, 28th February 2023) available at <https://www.politico.eu/article/online-safety-bill-uk-westminster-politics/> accessed 5th April 2023.
[7] Morgan Meaker, ‘WhatsApp has started a fight with the UK about encryption’ (Wired, 9th March 2023) available at <https://www.wired.co.uk/article/whatsapp-online-safety-bill-encryption> accessed 4th of April 2023.
[8] Dan Milmo, ‘UK could force messaging apps to adopt new technology to tackle abuse images’ The Guardian (London, 6th July 2022) available at <https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/jul/06/uk-could-force-messaging-apps-to-scan-for-child-sexual-abuse-images> accessed 4th April 2023.
[9] Alex Hern, ‘WhatsApp would not remove end-to-end encryption for UK law, says chief’ The Guardian (London, 9th March 2023) available at <https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/mar/09/whatsapp-end-to-end-encryption-online-safety-bill> accessed 5th April 2023.
[10] ‘Rowena Mason, Aamna Mohdin and Emine Sinmaz, ‘Police in England and Wales to get new powers to shut down protests before disruption begins’ The Guardian (London, 15th January 2023) available at <https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jan/15/police-to-get-new-powers-to-shut-down-protests-before-disruption-begins> accessed 5th April 2023.
[11] Peter Beaumont, ‘The truth about Twitter, Facebook and the uprisings in the Arab world’ The Guardian (London, 25th February 2011) available at <https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/feb/25/twitter-facebook-uprisings-arab-libya> accessed 5th April 2023.
[12] Marie Lamensch, ‘In Iran, women deploy social media in the fight for rights’ (CIGI, 16th November 2022) available at <https://www.cigionline.org/articles/in-iran-women-deploy-social-media-in-the-fight-for-rights/> accessed 5th April 2023; Raksha Kumar, ‘Not quite the Arab Spring: How protestors are using social media in innovative ways’ (Reuters Institute, 6th December 2022) available at <https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/news/not-quite-arab-spring-how-protestors-are-using-social-media-innovative-ways> accessed 5th April 2023.
[13] Moya Lothian-McLean, ‘YouTube comes under criticism for ‘demonetising queer content’’ The Independent (London, 11th October 2019) available at <https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/youtube-queer-vlogger-lgbt-video-content-demonetise-a9152506.html> accessed 3rd of April 2023.
[14] Vikram Dodd and Jamie Gierson, ‘Terrorism police list Extinction Rebellion as extremist ideology’ The Guardian (London, 10th January 2020) available at <https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jan/10/xr-extinction-rebellion-listed-extremist-ideology-police-prevent-scheme-guidance> accessed 4th April 2023; Jake Grinyer, ‘Environmental Groups listed in UK Counter-Terrorism watch list’ (OWP, 2nd February 2020) available at <https://theowp.org/environmental-groups-listed-in-u-k-counter-terrorism-watch-list/> accessed 4th April 2023.
[15] Edward Helmore, ‘Republican legislators introduce new laws to crack down on drag shows’ The Guardian (London, 21st January 2023) available at <https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jan/21/anti-drag-show-laws-bans-republican-states> accessed 3rd of April 2023.
[16] Jonathan Sumption, ‘The hidden harms in the Online Safety Bill’ The Spectator (London,20th August 2022) available at <https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-hidden-harms-in-the-online-safety-bill/> accessed 5th April 2023.
[17] Alexander Martin, ‘GCHQ experts set out how to tackle online child sexual abuse despite end-to-end encryption’ (SkyNews, 21st July 2022) available at <https://news.sky.com/story/gchq-experts-set-out-how-to-tackle-online-child-sexual-abuse-despite-end-to-end-encryption-12655936> accessed 5th April 2023
[18] Dan Milmo, ‘Signal app warns it will quit UK if law weakens end-to-end encryption’ The Guardian (London, 24th February 2023) available at <https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/feb/24/signal-app-warns-it-will-quit-uk-if-law-weakens-end-to-end-encryption> accessed 5th April 2023.
