The Virtual Global Taskforce (VGT), an international cooperation of police units, has called on tech giant Meta to abandon end-to-end encryption on Facebook Messenger and Instagram. The VGT, which was founded in 2003 and consists of 15 members, including the Dutch police and Europol, argues that this would make the protection of children more difficult. As an example, the organization cites the case of Englishman David Wilson, who urged thousands of children through Facebook to take sexual photos and videos for him. With end-to-end encryption, it would have been unlikely that he would have been caught, the VGT says.
Meta disagrees with this statement, however. A spokesperson for the tech giant told The Register that it already has detection systems in place to detect bad actors. “We don’t think people want us to read their private messages. That’s why we’ve put in place security measures that can prevent and detect this type of despicable abuse. This way we can take action against it, while keeping online privacy and security of paramount importance.”
Currently, Meta’s well-known messaging service WhatsApp contains this form of privacy protection. End-to-end encryption ensures that no one except the sender and receiver can view messages. Implementing this on Facebook Messenger and Instagram would simply follow Meta’s existing service.
