Dozens of leading UK security and privacy experts express grave concern over online safety bill provisions calling for monitoring of end-to-end encrypted messages for child sexual exploitation and abuse (CSEA) content bottom.
Section 110 of the bill, which is currently being passed through the House of Lords, gives Ofcom the power to force tech companies to use “certified technology” to identify and expedite the removal of CSEA content. This includes encrypted message providers such as WhatsApp and Signal.
To do this, you’ll need either a cryptographic backdoor, or “client-side scanning”. This requires the user to download software that monitors her CSEA content against a database of known illegal content before all messages are encrypted.
“Our concern is that surveillance technology is being introduced in the spirit of providing online safety. claimed.
“Such surveillance is definitively incompatible with maintaining today’s (and internationally adopted) online communication protocols that offer privacy guarantees similar to face-to-face conversations. Attempts to circumvent this contradiction are doomed to failure on a technical and perhaps social level.”
They said it would be impossible to provide a system that would allow only governments to access encrypted content, ultimately exposing them to future government overreach and “adversaries compromising surveillance infrastructure.” , argued.
The problem with client-side scanning, they continued, is that current algorithms are not very effective at detecting prohibited content, and false positives are more likely to cause damage. In the future, they warned, any scanning software could be reused to take a closer look at people’s lives.
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“If the Online Safety Bill is passed and the Ofcom Order is issued, several international telecommunications providers have refused to comply with orders that violate the security and privacy of their customers and have indicated their intention to exit the UK market. I will pay attention to you.”,” the letter concludes.
“This puts UK residents in a vulnerable situation and forces them to adopt vulnerable solutions for their online interactions.”
With Labor backing the bill, the bill is likely to pass, but this time politicians are expected to listen to experts and amend Section 110.
A new survey released yesterday by messaging app Element found that 83% of Britons want to protect their private conversations from government snooping, and 70% said scanning such messages would not lead to criminal activity. I agree that it cannot be stopped.
