A number of messaging apps equipped with encryption – among them the popular WhatsApp, Signal, Threema and Viber – have teamed up to fight a proposed UK law, which they say undermines the encryption of these services.
How does the The Verge site, the Online Safety Bill is being frowned upon for giving the British government and the communications regulator, OFCOM, power to access conversation content in these apps. By giving this access, companies realize that encryption (and therefore customers' privacy) will be more vulnerable.
"The law does not provide any explicit protection for encryption and, if implemented as written, could allow OFCOM to attempt to force the analysis of private messages on communication services with end-to-end encryption - therefore defeating the purpose of encryption as a result of compromise the privacy of all users", can be read at open letter.
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On the other hand, a British government official rejects that the law intends to weaken the encryption of these services and told the with the BBC which “Tech companies have a moral duty to ensure they are not ignoring unprecedented levels of child sexual abuse on their platforms”.
