WhatsApp CEO says it would be 'foolish' to bow to government pressure on encryption
People won’t like their messages being read by others, Will Cathcart argues
WhatsApp CEO Will Cathcart has said that the security of their messaging platform would not be weakened following any government orders.
In an interview with the BBC, Cathcart said that WhatsApp is used by millions of individuals to communicate throughout the globe, thus it must uphold the same privacy rules in every country.
Earlier this month, the UK government proposed legislation that would force encrypted messaging services like WhatsApp to use automated scanning to spot child sexual abuse content being sent through their platforms, or risk facing heavy fines.
The UK Online Safety Bill amendment would oblige tech companies to use their ' best endeavours ' to implement new technology that detects and eliminates child sexual abuse content.
It follows Home Secretary Priti Patel ' s praise for Apple's plans to combat child sexual abuse material (CSAM). Apple announced the plan last year, although it was postponed following criticism by privacy groups.
"Child sexual abuse is a sickening crime," Patel said. "We must all work to ensure criminals are not allowed to run rampant online and technology companies must play their part and take responsibility for keeping our children safe."
She said security and privacy are not mutually exclusive and it is possible to achieve both, "and that is what this amendment delivers."
However, experts have questioned whether it is really feasible to do that. Many have concluded that client-side scanning is the only practical solution, although it would undermine the core principles of end-to-end encryption (E2EE) since messages would no longer be private.
Client-side scanning will require service providers to create software to scan users' devices for illegal content, since E2EE makes it impossible to view the material in transit or on an interim server, but effectively it means placing spyware on the device, which many users would find unacceptable because of the risk of scope creep.
"Client-side scanning cannot work in practice," Mr Cathcart said.
"If we had to lower security for the world, to accommodate the requirement in one country, that ... would be very foolish for us to accept, making our product less desirable to 98% of our users because of the requirements from 2%," he added.
"What's being proposed is that we - either directly or indirectly through software - read everyone's messages. I don't think people want that."
In May, the European Commission unveiled measures aimed at addressing the massive volumes of CSAM uploaded on the internet each year.
The proposed measures call for further safeguards to protect children from online predators and harmful content on the internet.
Under the proposed rules, tech firms might be asked to detect both new and previously identified CSAM, as well as potential instances of grooming. The measures, if they become law, will apply to online hosting services and interpersonal communication services, such as messaging apps, internet service providers and app stores.
However, Cathcart doesn't agree with such measures and says WhatsApp has already found hundreds of thousands of child sex abuse images.
"There are techniques that are very effective and that have not been adopted by the industry and do not require us sacrificing everyone's security," he said.
"We report more than almost any other internet service in the world."
The claim, however, angered children's charities, including the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC).
"The reality is that as it stands right now, under this cloak of encryption, they are identifying only a fraction of the levels of abuse that the sister products, Facebook and Instagram, are able to detect," NSPCC head of child safety online policy, Andy Burrows said.
He described private messaging as "the front line" of child sex abuse.
"Two-thirds of child abuse that is currently identified and taken down is seen and removed in private messaging," Mr Burrows said.
"It's increasingly clear that it doesn't have to be children's safety and adult privacy that are pitted against each other. We want a discussion about what a balanced settlement can look like."