FACEBOOK has been blasted as “hopelessly naive” by British MPs who think the plans to encrypt its messaging app will assist paedophiles.
The alarm has been raised over Facebook’s plans to encrypt more of our private chats – shutting out hackers, but also the police.
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British politician Yvette Cooper has said that the plans will make it harder for police to protect children in danger of being abused.
There’s also fears they will stop the crackdown on sharing images of child abuse.
This means thousands of paedophiles could go undetected as they try to message children online or send illegal content.
The problem is that the social media giant will no longer be able to see the content of messages on Facebook and Instagram if its plans go ahead.
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That means its child abuse scanning software will no longer be effective on private messages.
Facebook has previously defended the plan and said that encryption is considered ‘industry standard’.
In many ways encryption is a good thing, it means you’re less susceptible to having your private messages hacked.
It can also protect your personal details and prevent spying and Facebook has stressed how it hopes to stop data fraud and identify theft.
However, it’s not so good if you’re the authorities trying to stop people breaking the law.
Facebook conceded that encryption might mean less reports of child abuse going to the police.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg has had these encryption plans since 2019 as he aims to make his social networks more ‘privacy focussed’.
Yesterday, Facebook representatives appeared before the UK Home Affairs select committee to address how it plans to tackle online harm.
MPs heard how Facebook’s child abuse scanning software had led to over 2,500 arrests and 3,000 children being rescued by police in the UK.
Despite US child safety organisations predicting a 70% drop in child abuse reports if encryptions comes into play, Facebook hopes educating users might be a solution.
Facebook’s Vice President of Global Policy Management Monika Bickert said at the meeting that the company wanted to educate users on how to avoid harmful situations.
Yvette Cooper responded: “This just sounds hopelessly naive when you have people who look for ways round systems and go to great lengths to perpetuate vile crimes against children.
“The kinds of things you are talking about are extremely easy for perpetrators to evade. You are making it even easier for them with end-to-end encryption.”
Facebook is not currently commenting further other than what was said at the committee meeting on Wednesday.
It maintained that child abuse and grooming have no place on its platforms and it will continue to work with law enforcement.
Facebook owned chatting platform WhatsApp is end-to-end encrypted and is said to ban around 250,000 accounts each month suspected of sharing child abuse images.
Facebook’s biggest cyber-security mistakes
Here’s some of the major times Facebook let us down…
- In 2007, Facebook’s first targetted advertising product, Beacon, caused outrage because there was initally no opt-in option about the kinds of information users wanted to share
- In 2009, a Federal Trade Commission investigation was triggered because Facebook users complained that the new privacy tools were too confusing and pushed users to make more of their personal information public
- In 2010, it was revealed that advertisers were using a privacy loophole to retrieve revealing personal information about Facebook users and the company had to change its software
- In 2011, the FTC charged Facebook with lying to customers about how their information could be kept private but making it public anyway
- 2018 saw Facebook’s biggest privacy scandal to date with reports that Cambridge Analytica misused user data and Facebook had to admit that it had failed to protect its users
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In other news, police are warning Facebook users about a scam that could target your friends and your bank account.
Assassins are accepting cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin to commit crimes, according to Russian media.
And, WhatsApp has made a U-turn on its decision to thrust controversial new terms on users next month.
What are your thoughts on encrypted chats? Let us know in the comments…
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This post first appeared on Thesun.co.uk
