Volume of material children are coerced or groomed into creating prompts renewed attack on end-to-end encryption More than 90% of child sexual abuse imagery found on the internet is now self-generated, according to the charity responsible for finding and removing such material. The Internet Watch Foundation said that it discovered self-generated child sexual abuse material (CSAM) featuring children under 10 on more than 100,000 webpages in the last year. That figure is an increase of 66% on the year before ..read more

The worries about online encryption are overblown. As for teenagers obeying a blanket ban: good luck with that Rishi Sunak’s government says a lot and does very little. And the mooted plans to consult on a crackdown on social media access for teenagers in the new year is likely another example of that. We are told to expect a consultation in January that could limit access to social media for under-16s, up to and including outright bans on access to sites like TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat and Facebook. Keen to be seen to be tough on issues that vex the electorate, Sunak can suggest a proposal a ..read more

Meta submitted nearly 95% of 29m reports of child sexual abuse material in 2022 and encryption will make it harder to detect Meta’s decision to introduce end-to-end encryption for Facebook messages will hamstring the rescue of child sex trafficking victims and the prosecution of predators, according to child safety organizations and US prosecutors. This week, the tech giant announced it had begun rolling out automatic encryption for direct messages on its Facebook and Messenger platforms to more than 1 billion users. Under the changes, Meta will no longer have access to the contents of the mes ..read more

Under the changes, Meta will no longer have access to the contents of what users send or receive, unless a user reports a message Facebook’s parent company has begun rolling out end-to-end encryption across Messenger and Facebook, Meta announced on Thursday. The company’s vice-president for Messenger, Loredana Crisan, said the encryption was built on the Signal protocol and Meta’s own Labyrinth protocol ..read more

Quantum computers may still be years away, but it’s prudent that end-to-end encryption providers are ramping up defences A spectre is haunting our networked world. It’s the prospect of quantum computers. These are machines that harness some of the weirder properties of subatomic particles in ways that would make them exponentially more powerful than the computers we use today. Existing computers are based on manipulating digital bits that can be either 1 (on) or 0 (off). Quantum machines, in contrast, work with qubits, which can be on and off simultaneously. (And, yes, I know that seems nuts ..read more

In Home Office initiative, survivors urge Mark Zuckerberg to rethink changes to Messenger and Instagram Mark Zuckerberg’s plan to roll out encrypted messaging on his platforms will let child abusers “hide in the dark”, according to a government campaign urging the tech billionaire to halt the move. The Facebook founder has been under pressure from ministers over plans to automatically encrypt communications on his Messenger service later this year, with Instagram expected to follow soon after ..read more

Technology secretary says move proposed in online safety bill is necessary to combat child abuse The technology secretary has defended the online safety bill’s push to force messaging apps to access private messages if requested by the communications watchdog. Michelle Donelan said the move, strongly opposed by secure messaging firms and privacy campaigners, was necessary to combat child abuse ..read more

Global alliance including NCA and FBI says Meta’s decision to encrypt direct messages could harm children An alliance of the world’s most powerful law enforcement agencies including the FBI, Interpol and Britain’s National Crime Agency (NCA) have condemned Meta’s plans to encrypt direct messages on Facebook Messenger and Instagram, saying that doing so will weaken the ability to keep child users safe. The Virtual Global Taskforce, made up of 15 agencies, is chaired by the NCA and also includes Europol and the Australian federal police among its membership. The VGT has spoken out, it says, owin ..read more

Boss of messaging app says users’ trust at risk from powers in online safety bill to impose monitoring The head of the messaging app Signal has warned that it will quit the UK if the forthcoming online safety bill weakens end-to-end encryption. Signal’s president said the organisation would “absolutely, 100% walk” if the legislation undermined its encryption service ..read more

Encryption of iCloud storage means the information will be safeguarded from hackers as well as government agencies Apple announced a suite of security and privacy improvements on Wednesday that the company is pitching as a way to help people protect their data from hackers, including one that civil liberty and privacy advocates have long pushed for. The tech giant will soon allow users to choose to secure more of the data backed up to their iCloud using end-to-end encryption, which means no one but the user will be able to access that information ..read more