Facebook now Meta, announced in 2019 that it would merge the entire infrastructure of its messaging services to encrypt end-to-end messages across all its platforms.. So far, that has only happened on WhatsApp, while for Instagram and Facebook Messenger it will take until 2023.
Antigone Davis, the company’s head of global security, published a note in the British newspaper The Sunday Telegraph about Meta’s efforts to keep children safe on its platforms. In this text, the manager assured that they are taking their time, so they do not plan to finalize the global rollout of end-to-end encryption by default across all messaging services until sometime in 2023.
The social media company had originally planned for the implementation of end-to-end encryption for Instagram and Messenger messages to wrap up in 2022, but according to Davis, they now require additional time to “get it right.”
End-to-end encryption means that only the sender and recipient can see the messages that are sent to each other, so it is an important and necessary function to preserve the privacy and security of users. For now, to have that additional privacy layer on Instagram and Messenger, it is necessary to do it manually, when starting an encrypted chat, using the function of Secret conversations.
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Secondly, In the UK, Meta is in the middle of a battle for end-to-end encryption on its services, with a particular emphasis on child safety. In 2019, the country’s interior secretary, Priti Patel, together with officials from the Five Eyes intelligence alliance – made up of the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand – pressured Meta to force law enforcement to could access people’s end-to-end encrypted messages.
The UK will enact a security law in 2023, which will require tech companies to prevent abuse and protect children. For this reason, Priti Patel has had no qualms about oppose default encryption, claiming that this feature would “severely” limit law enforcement’s ability to pursue criminals, so Meta could face pressure to change its plans when the law takes effect.
Meta says end-to-end encryption is important for user privacy and that it can help law enforcement identify criminals with metadata, which is unrelated to the actual content of a message.
In his text published in The Sunday Telegraph antigone Davis said that: “We believe that people should not have to choose between privacy and security, so we are incorporating strong security measures into our plans and collaborating with privacy and security experts, the civil society and governments to make sure we get this right. “
Davis added that, By implementing end-to-end encryption on all of its platforms, Meta would still have the power to detect abuse through a combination of unencrypted information and user reports.. In this sense, the delay in implementation can allow time to reassure governments and avoid possible conflicts, although for users, the longer wait generates some uncertainty.