Privacy or Secrecy?
Our response to the Children Commissioner's report on end-to-end encryption in instant messaging.
ChatPro welcomes the Commissioner’s report. It’s illustrative of Anne Longfield’s insistence that technology companies need to do more to keep children safe online. In particular, her push-back against end-to-end encryption in instant messaging.
The report explains the difference between standard and end-to-end encryption. Standard encryption prevents unauthorised third parties from intercepting messages. End-to-end encryption prevents anyone apart from the sender and recipient(s) from reading messages.
This is a crucial difference if it’s your job to protect children and vulnerable adults from harm. Privacy through standard encryption is positive; it prevents bad actors from accessing sensitive data. Secrecy through end-to-end encryption on the other hand is negative; it prevents effective supervision of vulnerable users. It’s like banning teachers from the playground and hoping the pupils will be safe. This is why ChatPro uses standard encryption, not end-to-end encryption.
The Commissioner’s report also provides a timely insight into the way children use technology in 2020, and how much this has changed even in the past 5 years. It is striking that 90% of children aged 8-17 now use instant messaging; it has become the go-to method for digital communication. This makes Anne Longfield’s opposition of end-to-end encryption in instant messaging all the more important.
The report concludes by making recommendations to policy makers and industry about the way forward. As with the rest of the report, we welcome the findings. In particular, the role of the Age Appropriate Design Code. This in effect bans end-to-end encryption from online services likely to be used by children. The ICO needs to take note of this and punish firms that don’t comply, irrespective of their size.
If you work with children we recommend you read the report. It’s not long but contains a lot of insight. You can download a copy here. If you’re short on time you can read a BBC News article about it here.