The owner of WhatsApp, Meta, has been accused by the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), which assists in identifying and eliminating child abuse information from the internet, of not having the necessary safeguards in place to prevent the dissemination of such content, including the kind that was forwarded to former broadcaster Huw Edwards.
Edwards said in July that he had received explicit photos of kids from people on the end-to-end encrypted messaging service WhatsApp. Encrypted messages are not visible to or accessible by anybody outside of a chat, not even by the service provider.
In an attempt to stop the dissemination of information about child abuse, some activists are advocating for encryption upgrades that would allow law authorities to read these kinds of messages.
Others, however, contend that safe messaging services are essential for safeguarding the weak, including younger users, and that there isn’t yet a workable technology that could open a so-called backdoor into encryption without ultimately cracking it and jeopardizing user safety and privacy.
