WhatsApp, Signal and Threema are sounding the alarm about the threat of “chat control”.

Shortly before a planned tightening of online laws in Britain, WhatsApp, Signal, Threema and other messaging providers sound the alarm: they warn of surveillance.

In addition to the EU’s so-called “chat control”, there are now two bills in Europe with the UK’s “Online Safety Bill”, which “allows for extensive surveillance of chat communications for no reason under the guise of child protection”.

Encryption defense

In its planned version, the British law could spell the end of encrypted communications and thus the routine monitoring of private messages, company representatives wrote in an open letter published Tuesday.

“We do not believe that any company, government or individual should be able to read personal messages and we will continue to defend encryption technology,” the statement said.

The British government is being called upon to amend the law accordingly, for example to secure end-to-end encryption in the future.

Allegedly to combat child abuse

With end-to-end encryption, the content of the communication is only available in plain text to the users involved, but not to the service providers. This means that they cannot provide information to authorities, for example during investigations.

Efforts are therefore also being made in other countries to weaken end-to-end encryption. Britain wants to go further with the law than others.

The British House of Lords will hold its final reading on the law this Wednesday. The Ministry of Interior defends the draft against child abuse, pointing out that the responsible regulatory body should only exercise its right of supervision “in appropriate and limited circumstances”. Downing Street said there were no plans to routinely monitor private communications.

Independent messaging service Signal and WhatsApp, which belongs to the Facebook group Meta, had previously threatened to leave the UK market rather than weaken encryption.

Sources

(oli/sda/awp/dpa)