Facebook and Instagram Messages Wont Have Full Encryption Until 2023
U.K. home secretary Priti Patel argues the feature would enable child sexual abuse online.
Meta has now announced the delay of full end-to-end encryption for both Facebook and Instagram‘s messaging service, pushing back the launch of a feature currently already being used by its other instant messaging program WhatsApp.
“We’re taking our time to get this right and we don’t plan to finish the global rollout of end-to-end encryption by default across all our messaging services until sometime in 2023,” Meta’s head of safety Antigone Davis told the Sunday Telegraph. “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.”
The delay comes following pressure from certain government officials and organizations that argue encryption would be the “frontline of child sexual abuse online” as law enforcement would not be able to see dangerous messages, according to the British National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. The country’s home secretary Priti Patel has also called Meta’s plans “simply not acceptable.”
Elsewhere in tech, El Salvador is building a “Bitcoin City” funded by Bitcoin bonds.
