Suella Braverman was concerned about Meta's plan to implement end-to-end encryption. Credit: Neil Hall/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock Banner: Duty
Facebook and Instagram must adopt firewall technology to keep them from becoming pedophile havens, Swella Braverman warned.
In The Telegraph Exclusive article below The Home Secretary said the platforms, which are part of Mark Zuckerberg's Meta empire, needed to implement technology that could detect and remove sexual content.
She warned that the tech giants' plans to implement end-to-end encryption on Facebook Messenger and Instagram Direct would severely limit the authorities' ability to detect child abuse and sexual abuse material.
End-to-end encryption is designed to protect user privacy by preventing anyone, apart from the sender and recipient, read the message.
However, ministers, police and children's charities fear that this will mean the disappearance of up to 85% of allegations of child abuse that are currently forwarded to investigators.
Ms Braverman said: “The government supports user privacy. This is required for online financial transactions and people are free to chat with their friends. But Meta uses end-to-end encryption in a way that prevents detection of child sexual abuse.
“Social media companies wield tremendous power that must be accompanied by an adequately developed sense of responsibility. Meta platforms cannot become a safe haven for child abusers.”
Meta plans to introduce end-to-end encryption on its platforms like Facebook Messenger and Instagram Direct Credit: Loionel Bonaventure/AFP via Getty Images
It is believed that her position was supported by her colleagues from the Five Eyes security alliance, representatives from the UK, US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, who met this week in New Zealand.
However, backlash has been mounting from the tech lobby, which is resisting the government's plans for an online safety bill that would allow Ofcom, the communications watchdog, to direct platforms to use accredited technology to detect and remove child sexual abuse material.
Eighty organizations and technical experts have written to Secretary of Technology Chloe Smith calling for a review of the powers.
Apple said the bill needed to be amended to protect encryption. This means that some of the most widely used encrypted apps, including Signal and WhatsApp, are now opposing this part of the bill.
In February, Signal said it would pull out of the UK if forced to relax the privacy of its encrypted messaging app.
The government argued that technology solutions could be provided that allow the content of encrypted messages to be scanned for child abuse without compromising privacy.
In her article, Ms Braverman cited a state-funded security program. Tech Challenge Fund, which helps develop technologies that can detect child sexual abuse material in end-to-end encrypted environments.
She said it showed it was “technically possible” to detect child sexual abuse while maintaining privacy.
Mark Zuckerberg of Meta is under pressure to keep its social media free of sexual violence content. Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
In a direct challenge to Mr. Zuckerberg, the Home Secretary said she does not believe there should be “a choice between child protection and privacy, so we are asking Meta to use their significant experience and their vast resources to develop and implement measures.” who keep children safe on their encrypted services.”
The National Crime Agency estimates that there are up to 850,000 people in the UK who pose a sexual threat to children. Last year, the number of obscene images of children increased by 13% to 34,485.
Meta accounts for 85 percent of the 32 million child sexual abuse images and videos submitted to the US center, which then passes them on to the national police for investigation. This led to the arrest of 800 child sexual abuse suspects in the UK. Campaigners fear that this data will disappear with the introduction of encryption.
But a spokesperson for Meta said: “The vast majority of Britons already rely on applications that use encryption to protect themselves from hackers, scammers and criminals.
“We don’t think people want us to read their private messages, which is why we have developed security measures that prevent, detect and allow us to take action against this nefarious abuse while maintaining online privacy and security.
“We remain committed to working with law enforcement and child safety experts to implement end-to-end encryption.”
There should be no choice between child protection and privacy
Suella Braverman
The thought of child abuse upsets any decent person on an almost visceral level. And every adult has a moral obligation to do everything possible to protect children from abuse.
Life presents young people with all sorts of dangers. The Internet is especially fraught with risks. Along with its many and varied benefits, the reality is that it also serves as a platform for child sexual abuse and exploitation of the most heinous kind.
This is not a small problem. There are over 400,000 online searches for child sexual abuse material in the UK each month. Watching and sharing nasty images and videos isn't everything: rapes and other abuse are broadcast live, and children are sold and even killed live.
It would be impossible to describe some of these acts in detail in a national newspaper, but suffice it to say that they are an absolute evil.
It is important that people understand that this evil does not happen in the dark corners of the Internet on specialized illegal platforms. Pedophiles and other predators use the same social media platforms as the rest of us for innocent and normal activities.
32 million people were referred to the US National Center for Missing and Exploited Children last year. The Meta, Facebook and Instagram platforms accounted for 82% of these referrals.
The information Meta and other tech companies provide to law enforcement in the UK helps protect around 1,200 children each month and results in more than 800 arrests of child sexual abuse suspects per month.
With great power comes great responsibility
However, Meta plans to roll out end-to-end encryption soon without any guarantees. This means that Meta will no longer proactively detect and alert authorities to childcare and child sexual abuse material on Facebook Messenger and Instagram Direct after the messages are end-to-end encrypted. This will be a huge benefit to anyone who wants to harm a child.
The government maintains user privacy. This is required for online financial transactions and people are free to chat with their friends. But Meta uses end-to-end encryption in a way that prevents detection of child sexual abuse.
Social media companies wield enormous power, which must be accompanied by an adequately developed sense of responsibility. Meta platforms cannot become a safe haven for child abusers.
I will write to Mark Zuckerberg along with my colleague Tom Tugendhat, Secretary of State for Security, and others, including children's charities and constituencies, to raise these concerns.
The Safety Tech Challenge is a UK government funded program that has supported the development of experimental tools capable of detecting child sexual abuse material in end-to-end encrypted environments.
Through this, the government, technical experts and broader industry partners have demonstrated that it would be technically feasible to detect child sexual abuse in environments that use encryption while strictly maintaining user privacy.
We believe that there is no need to make a choice between child protection and privacy, so we ask Meta to use its considerable experience and its extensive resources to develop and implement measures to ensure the safety of children in its encrypted services.
All partners should step up their game .
Combating child sexual abuse requires a “system-wide” response in which all partners use their unique capabilities and expertise to combat this threat.
That's why the government's strategy to combat child sexual abuse, released in January 2021, outlines our long-term goals for working with local authorities, law enforcement, international partners, the third sector and industry to bring offenders to justice, prevent and reoffend. offences, protecting and protecting young people, and providing support to all victims and survivors.
The government has invested in new tools and capabilities to ensure that forces across the country have the technological tools available to them to identify and bring to justice more perpetrators of child sexual abuse.
Our massive investment in Advance Tools for Offender Management, which provides the police with more digital equipment, resulted in hundreds of arrests and investigations in the first half of this year.
We are also funding a database of child abuse images to help better identify victim and perpetrator. With new features such as “quick forensic triage”, device searches that used to take 24 hours can now be completed in 30 minutes.
However, governments and law enforcement agencies are not the only ones responsible for protecting children online. . Companies must also fulfill their obligations.
Our Internet Safety Bill, for the first time, requires technology companies to take additional steps to keep children safe online. They will be accountable to an independent UK regulator and will be required to remove and restrict the distribution of illegal content, including child sexual abuse and exploitation.
A global response to a global problem
Child sexual abuse is a global problem that requires a concerted global response. Approximately 750,000 people simultaneously search for children online for sexual purposes, while the child may be in one jurisdiction and the perpetrator in another.
We must work with international partners to solve this problem. I was in New Zealand this week for the Five Eyes security conference where I spoke with allies in the US, Australia, New Zealand and Canada on how to advance our collective efforts to ensure social media companies put children's safety comes first.
They recognize the threat posed by Meta introducing end-to-end encryption to our children, and our stance has received widespread support. The UK is also working with international partners, including through the G7, to improve global standards and encourage industry to play its part.
All of us, no matter how rich and powerful, have a responsibility to do what is in our forces. to keep children safe from abuse.
Suella Braverman – Secretary of the Interior
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