A new road traffic law in the UK could lead to a dramatic end to Whatsapp in European countries: the application may be blocked. According to the text, the new law – which is still under analysis by parliament – covers several points. The main one is to fight child pornography more actively.
For that, the app would have to give up one of its most important security features: end-to-end encryption. Therefore, Will Cathcart, head of WhatsApp within Meta, spoke out on the matter. After all, the decision could affect the safety of users in countries like England and Scotland. The executive said he prefers the app "to be region-locked rather than compromising the privacy of encrypted messages."
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WhatsApp would rather be blocked than remove encryption
End-to-end encryption has become one of the main focuses of WhatsApp to promote its service, showing that it is secure. O
signal it is also an option that offers multi-layered privacy settings, ensuring that it is extremely difficult to access the contents of private messages. The problem is that these measures do not distinguish between the content of conversations.Combating child pornography and privacy in messaging apps
According to data from the British government and foundations for the protection of children and adolescents, child pornography has grown a lot in recent years. Therefore, the text of the Online Security Charter brings as possible measures to force messaging applications to scan and store the content of private messages.
This creates a huge margin for criminals to act freely, as they are protected by the privacy terms of messaging apps. In this way, WhatsApp prefers to have the application blocked.
If the law is passed, it could require media companies to use certified technologies to monitor messages, actively identifying illicit content. Cathcart's argument, and that of parliamentarians who oppose the current text, is that it sets a precedent for the implementation of more invasive tools for information control.
Graduated in Social Communication at the Federal University of Goiás. Passionate about digital media, pop culture, technology, politics and psychoanalysis.