According to a report, the British Government is planning a publicity attack on end-to-end encryption in order to get the public's opinion against the technology and to derail Facebook's plan to end-to-end encrypt its Messenger platform.
The Home Office has hired M&C Saatchi to plan a campaign that will include a media frenzy with TV ads, campaigning efforts from UK charities and law enforcement agencies, calls to action for the public to contact tech companies directly, and multiple real-world situations.
Rolling Stone reviewed documents and found that one of the activities considered as part of the publicity offensive is placing an adult and child in a glass box, with the adult looking at the child as the glass fades to black. The campaign was due to start this month, with privacy groups planning a counter-campaign.
The UK government's stance on anti-encryption isn't new, but its latest effort is focused on the argument that improved encryption would hamper efforts to tackle child exploitation online. A Home Office spokesman told Rolling Stone that they had engaged M&C Saatchi to bring together organizations who share their concerns about the impact end-to-end encryption would have on children's safety.
One slide in a presentation produced by the UK government states that most of the public have never heard of end-to-end encryption, which means people can be easily swayed on the issue. The campaign must not start a privacy vs safety debate.
The Home Office sent a letter to a freedom of information request stating that the UK government had allocated over half a million dollars for the campaign.
End-to-end encryption for Messenger and Instagram messages will be delayed until at least 2023, a year later than previously planned. The delay was to give it more time to coordinate with experts in the field of fighting online abuse while also protecting user privacy.
End-to-end encryption is used on messaging platforms like Signal, Telegram, Facebook, and Apple's iMessage to prevent anyone from seeing communications between sender and recipient. Security experts have argued for a long time that a weakened system would mean a weakened system for everyone.
Both Meta and Apple have fought against anti-encryption legislation. Meta successfully challenged a court order to force it to decode Facebook Messenger calls. An investigation into the activities of the gang on Facebook Messenger led to the order.
In the year 2016 Apple was ordered to help the FBI get into the phone of one of the San Bernardino attackers.
Apple opposed the order and claimed that it would set a dangerous precedent. The U.S. government backed off after finding an alternate way to access the device, but Apple has had to deal with more law enforcement efforts to combat encryption.
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