In an open letter to Facebook (FB) CEO Mark Zuckerberg made public Thursday, the officials wrote that while “law abiding citizens have a legitimate expectation that their privacy will be protected,” effective encryption can hinder “our law enforcement agencies’ ability to stop criminals and abusers in their tracks.”
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The letter was signed by Barr, acting US Secretary of Homeland Security Kevin McAleenan, UK Home Secretary Home Priti Patel, and Australian Minister for Home Affairs Peter Dutton.
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The encryption debate, which pits tech companies that want to ensure user communications are private and secure against law enforcement’s desire to access such messages, is decades old.
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Some messaging services, such as Facebook’s WhatsApp, utilize end-to-end encryption by default, meaning that only the individual devices an account is on — and not even the company that hosts the message — will have the keys to decrypt a conversation.
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Barr revived the issue in July, calling tech companies’ embrace of end-to-end encryption “dangerous” and “unacceptable.”
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“We respect and support the role law enforcement has in keeping people safe,” a Facebook spokesperson said in a statement provided to CNN. “We strongly oppose government attempts to build backdoors because they would undermine the privacy and security of people everywhere.”
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Civil liberties groups also resoundingly oppose such measures. “It’s a staggering request. Despite claiming to ‘support strong encryption’ these law enforcement officials are asking for the ability to access the text of all communications,” said Andrew Crocker, a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. ‘It would fundamentally compromise the security and privacy of encrypted communications on Facebook.”
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