Signal, an app for sending encrypted messages, said it would stop working in the UK if a new law made encryption less safe.
Meredith Whittaker, the president of Signal, told the BBC that the company would leave if the Online Safety Bill forced it to make its messaging system less private.
The government said its plan was not a “ban on encryption from end to end.”
Boris Johnson brought the bill to Parliament, where it is now being discussed.
Critics say that under the new law, Ofcom could require companies to check encrypted app messages for information about sexual abuse of children or terrorism.
Companies whose job is to ensure people can talk to each other safely and privately are worried about this.
The UK company Element, whose clients include the Ministry of Defense, told the BBC that the plan would cost them and their clients.
WhatsApp once told the BBC that it would not make any government less safe.
“What a great idea”
The government and well-known groups that work to protect children have said for a long time that encryption makes it harder to stop online child abuse, which they say is a growing problem.
In a statement, the Home Office said that tech companies should do everything they can to make sure that pedophiles don’t use their platforms to grow.
Also, it said, “End-to-end encryption is not against what the Online Safety Bill says. Instead, it shows that technology changes shouldn’t make people less safe, especially online children. “We don’t have to choose between keeping our kids safe and protecting their privacy. We can have both, and we must.”
In response to Signal’s announcement, the NSPCC, an organization that protects children, said, “Tech companies should be forced to stop the abuse happening at record levels on their platforms, including in private messaging and end-to-end encrypted environments.”
But the Open Rights Group, which fights for digital rights, said that it showed how the bill could hurt “our right to communicate securely and privately.”
But Ms. Whittaker told the BBC that it was “magical thinking” to think that we could have privacy “but only for the good guys.”
She said, “Either encryption protects everyone, or anyone can break it.”
She said that the Online Safety Bill “embodied” this kind of magical thinking.
More than 100 million people have downloaded Signal from the Google Play store alone.
It uses end-to-end encryption to ensure that no one, not even the company running the service, can read the messages.
In California, a non-profit group runs the app. Journalists, activists, and politicians are among the people who use it.
Apple’s iMessage, Facebook, and Telegram also use end-to-end encryption only if the user chooses to.
Apple had planned to use a system that would scan messages sent from phones and other devices for images of child abuse before encrypting them, but the plan was canceled after people spoke out against it.
Some people have said that this method, called “client-side scanning,” may be the one that tech companies will have to use in the end. But on the other hand, critics say that it defeats the point of encryption.
Ms. Whittaker said that everyone’s phone would become a “device for mass surveillance that calls home to tech companies, governments, and private organizations.”
Promises of privacy by Signal
Ms. Whittaker said that “back doors” that let private messages be read would be used by “bad state actors.” “and make it easier for criminals to break into these systems.
When asked if the Online Safety Bill could hurt their ability to provide a service in the UK, she told the BBC, “It could, and we would leave rather than break the trust people have in the platform to provide a truly private way to communicate.”
Matthew Hodgson, the CEO of the British secure communications company Element, said that just the threat of having to scan would cost him, clients.
He said that customers would think that any secure communication product from the UK would have to have backdoors that could be used to check for illegal content.
He also said that it could lead to a strange situation in which a government bill could make it harder for the MoD and other sensitive government departments to keep their customers safe.
He also said that some things the company does might have to stop.
Safety for kids
Ms. Whittaker said that no one doesn’t want to protect children, and some of the stories told are scary.
/When asked how she would respond to claims that encryption protects abusers, Ms. Whittaker said that she thought most abuses happened in the family and community, which is where she thought efforts to stop it should be focused.
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She cited a paper by Professor Ross Anderson that argued for better funding of child protection services and warned that the idea that complex social problems can be solved with cheap technical solutions is the siren song of the software salesman.
