Messaging services such as WhatsApp, Signal and Threema fear a new British law will end encrypted communication.
London – Shortly before a planned tightening of online laws in Great Britain hit Whatsapp, Signal, Threema and other operators of messaging services alarm. In the planned version, the law could mean the end of encrypted communication and thus the routine monitoring of private messages, representatives of the companies wrote in an open letter published on Tuesday.
Messaging services fear surveillance of private messages. (symbol image) © dpa/Zachary Scheurer
“We do not believe that any company, government or individual should be able to read personal messages and we will continue to defend encryption technology,” it said.
The British government is being called on to adapt the law accordingly in order to secure end-to-end encryption in the future, for example.
With end-to-end encryption, the content of the communication is only available in plain text to the users involved, but not to the service providers. This means that they cannot give authorities any information, for example during investigations.
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Efforts are therefore also being made in other countries to weaken end-to-end encryption. Great Britain wants to go further with the law than others.
Control in “reasonable” cases
The British House of Lords in London ultimately makes the decision. © dpa/AP/Kirsty Wigglesworth
The British House of Lords is due to have its final reading on the law tomorrow, Wednesday.
The Ministry of the Interior defends the draft with the fight against child abuse and points out that the responsible regulatory authority should only make use of its monitoring rights “in appropriate and limited circumstances”.
Downing Street said there were no plans to routinely monitor private communications.
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Signal and Whatsapp, which belongs to the Facebook group Meta, had previously threatened to leave the British market rather than weaken encryption.
