Cybersecurity & Standards, European Policy, Government Surveillance, Privacy & Data
CDT Europe Joins Coalition Pushing Back on UK Home Office’s Anti-Encryption Campaign
This week, CDT Europe joined other Global Encryption Coalition members and leading security and technology experts around the world in a letter, making clear that “the UK Home Office [is] misleading the public with a ‘scaremongering’ campaign against end-to-end encryption.”
From the open letter:
The UK Home Office plans to force technology companies to remove the privacy and security of encrypted services such as WhatsApp and Signal as part of its Online Safety Bill. Even worse, the Home Office has launched a scaremongering campaign wasting hundreds of thousands of pounds on a London advertising agency to undermine public trust in a critical digital security tool to keep people and businesses safe online.
Undermining encryption would make our private communications unsafe, allowing hostile strangers and governments to intercept conversations. Undermining encryption would put at risk the safety of those who need it most. Survivors of abuse or domestic violence, including children, need secure and confidential communications to speak to loved ones and access the information and support they need. As Stephen Bonner, executive director for technology and innovation at the UK Information Commissioner’s Office recently noted, end-to-end encryption “strengthens children’s online safety by not allowing criminals and abusers to send them harmful content or access their pictures or location.”
Read more about the campaign from Open Rights Group’s press release.
