Facebook tells US attorney general it won’t remove encryption from its messaging apps
0Reported today on The Verge
For the full article visit: https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/10/21004873/facebook-whatsapp-bill-barr-justice-department-instagram-messenger
Reported today in The Verge.
Facebook tells US attorney general it won't remove encryption from its messaging apps
Facebook executives told Attorney General William Barr that the company would not provide law enforcement with investigative access to its encrypted messaging products ahead of a senate hearing on encryption on Tuesday.
In a letter, WhatsApp and Messenger heads Will Cathcart and Stan Chudnovsky, respectively, said that any "backdoor" access into Facebook's products created for law enforcement could be used by bad actors for nefarious purposes. For this reason, Facebook denied Barr's request to make its products more accessible.
"The 'backdoor' access you are demanding for law enforcement would be a gift to criminals, hackers and repressive regimes, creating a way for them to enter our systems and leaving every person on our platforms more vulnerable to real-life harm," the Facebook executives wrote. "People's private messages would be less secure and the real winners would be anyone seeking to take advantage of that weakened security. That is not something we are prepared to do."
Earlier this year, Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that the company would pivot heavily into end-to-end encrypted messaging. The underlying infrastructure of its three messaging products - Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger - would be tied together and made more private.
In October, the Justice Department took issue with Facebook over this privacy announcement, suggesting that the company's plan would benefit criminals, primarily sex traffickers and pedophiles. "Companies should not deliberately design their systems to preclude any form of access to content even for preventing or investigating the most serious crimes," Barr said.
Facebook's Tuesday letter was sent in r