MI5: Facebook gives malicious people a pass if it implements e2e encryption

Ken McCallum, the chief executive of the British secret service MI5, says the introduction of end-to-end encryption on Facebook’s platforms will give free-passage to malicious people in society with bad intentions. That’s what the man said in an interview with Times Radio.

“With end-to-end encryption and no way to get around that encryption, you give those few in society who have bad intentions a safe pass to do what they want. After all, they know that no one can control them for what they do in these private environments,” McCallum said in an interview with Times Radio.

“The extent to which we can do our job depends as much on the decisions made in American boardrooms as it does on the decisions made in Afghanistan or Syria,” McCallum said in the interview. “Facebook’s plans will allow terrorist attacks to be prepared without law enforcement being able to detect them in advance,” McCallum said.

According to McCallum, Facebook will no longer be able to use algorithms to detect illegal content. This will then not be able to be reported and will be handed over to the competent authorities after they have received a warrant for this.

In 2019, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that the social media platform would focus more on privacy. He then announced that he wanted to provide Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp with end-to-end encryption. Messenger supports end-to-end encryption, but it is not enabled by default. Since 2016, WhatsApp has been using the Signal Protocol for secure chat and voice communication in all its apps.

In 2020, a Facebook programmer said it could be years before Messenger would have end-to-end encryption by default. “Adding E2e encryption to an existing system is incredibly challenging and requires everything from scratch,” it said. Shortly thereafter, more than 100 children’s organizations expressed their shared concern in an open letter against Facebook’s plans to introduce end-to-end encryption. They fear that children’s safety will be compromised after the introduction of end-to-end encryption.