The chat app's boss said that WhatsApp would refuse to comply with requirements in the online safety bill that tried to outlaw end-to- end encryption and cast doubt on the future of the service in the UK.
Speaking during a UK visit in which he will meet legislators to discuss the government's flagship internet regulation, Will Cathcart, Meta s head of WhatsApp, described the bill as the most concerning piece of legislation currently being discussed in the western world.
He said it was a remarkable thing to think about. There isn't a way to change it in just one part of the world. Some countries have blocked it, that is the reality of shipping a secure product. We have recently been blocked in Iran. We have never seen a liberal democracy do that.
The users of the world want security, said Cathcart. Ninety-eight per cent of our users are outside the UK. It would be an odd choice for us to lower the security of the product in a way that would affect 98% of the users, because they do not want us to lower the security of the product. End to end encryption is used in messaging services to prevent anyone but the recipients of a communication from being able to decrypt it. WhatsApp can't read messages sent over its own service, so it can't comply with law enforcement requests to hand over messages or pleas to actively monitor communications for child protection or antiterror purposes.
The 2016 investigatory powers act gave the UK government the power to demand the removal of encryption, but WhatsApp has never received a legal demand to do so, Cathcart said. There is a grey area in the legislation that is a concern with the expansion of that power.
Under the bill, the government or Ofcom could require WhatsApp to apply content moderation policies which would be impossible to comply with without end-to- end encryption. If the company doesn't do enough to stop it from the UK market, it could face fines of up to 4% of its parent company Meta's annual turnover.
Cathcart said similar legislation in other countries, such as the EU's digital markets act, explicitly defends end-to- end encryption for messaging services, and he called for a similar language to be inserted into the UK bill before it passes. Privacy and security should be considered in the framework. It could say that end-to-end encryption should not be taken away. There can be more procedural safeguards so that this can't happen independently as a decision. Although WhatsApp is best known as a messaging app, the company also offers social networking-style features through its communities offering, which allows group chats of more than a 1,000 users to be grouped together to mimic services such as Slack and Discord. The chances of a large community causing trouble was slim, according to Cathcart. When you get into a group of that size, the ease of one person reporting it is very easy for one person to report it, or easy for someone to report it if someone is investigating it for them to get access. The company requires UK users to be older than 16 but Cathcart refused to advise parents with children that have an account on the service to delete it, saying it is important that parents make thoughtful choices. The online safety bill is expected to return to parliament this summer. If passed, it will give Ofcom significant new powers as the internet regulator, and allow it to require effective content moderation under the penalty of large fines.