Meta delays plans to encrypt messages on Facebook and Instagram until 2023
Meanwhile WhatsApp has published a new privacy policy for users in Ireland and across Europe
Meta, the company formerly known as Facebook Inc, has delayed plans to encrypt users' messages on Messenger and Instagram until 2023, after warnings that the feature could shield child abusers from detection.
In a post in the Sunday Telegraph, Antigone Davis, head of safety at Meta, wrote that the company wanted to take some more time before launching end-to-end encryption across all its messaging services and would not finish its global rollout until sometime in 2023.
"As a company that connects billions of people around the world and has built industry-leading technology, we're determined to protect people's private communications and keep people safe online."
Meta already uses encryption technology in its WhatsApp messaging service but had been planning to roll out the feature to other services in 2022.
Some politicians and law enforcement bodies, however, are concerned that introducing end-to-end encryption in Facebook Messenger and Instagram would make it difficult to identify child abuse images in private messages. They warn that Facebook will no longer use algorithms to flag illegal content, and no person other than the sender and receiver will be able to view the messages.
In April, Home Secretary Priti Patel urged Facebook to "take the safety of children as seriously" as it does the business of advertising on the internet. She warned that Facebook's plan to roll out end-to-end encryption across all its messaging platforms could jeopardise the ongoing work to combat child abuse.
In September, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Dame Cressida Dick said that tech companies' focus on end-to-end encryption technology was making it harder - if not impossible - to identify and stop terrorists. In an opinion piece in the Telegraph, Cressida Dick noted that terrorist groups were exploiting advances in communications technology "to reach, recruit and inspire anyone, anywhere and at any time through social media and the internet."
Meta however sees end-to-end encryption essential to keep users safe from malicious actors.
Davis said on Monday that the company plans to use a combination of non-encrypted data across of its apps, account information and reports from users to keep them safe in a privacy-protected way while assisting public safety efforts.
"This kind of work already enables us to make vital reports to child safety authorities from WhatsApp," he added.
Meta's apps are used by 2.8 billion people every day. Last year, the tech industry made over 21 million referrals of child sexual abuse identified on online platforms globally to the US National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Of those reports, more than 20 million were from Facebook.
Meta's move to delay the rollout of encryption comes at the time when WhatsApp has published a new privacy policy for users in Ireland and across Europe, providing more detail about how it collects, stores, uses and deletes customer data.
The policy changes came in response to the Ireland Data Protection Commission's (DPC) findings in September that the Meta-owned service had breached data protection rules.
The regulator also issued WhatsApp a financial penalty of €225 million (about £193 million) and asked it to tweak its privacy policy as well as change how it communicates with users about sharing their data with other firms.
WhatsApp said on Monday that the changes in its policy are designed to "add additional detail around our existing practices" rather than changes to the service.
"This update does not change the way we operate our service, including how we process, use or share your data with anyone, including our parent company Meta," the company said.
"There are no changes to our processes or contractual agreements with users, and users will not be required to agree to anything or to take any action in order to continue using WhatsApp."