Security News > 2021 > September > UK.gov is launching an anti-Facebook encryption push. Don't think of the children: Think of the nuances and edge cases instead
The British government is preparing to launch a full-scale policy assault against Facebook as the company gears up to introduce end-to-end encryption across all of its services.
The backlash has already begun, showing that officials face a tooth-and-nail fight to derail the rollout of end-to-end encryption on the anti-social networking site and others in the Facebook estate.
The government's long-signalled push to deter Facebook from implementing E2EE comes, inevitably, at a significant cost to taxpayers: London ad agency M&C Saatchi has been hired at an undisclosed cost by the Home Office to tell the public that Facebook harbours criminals.
Around 100,000 individuals are reportedly on the Sex Offenders' Register at any one time, while government officials suggested to the press that potential child sex abuse offenders on Facebook are greatly in excess of that number.
Officials were grave when The Register asked what their Plan B was if Facebook shrugs off the publicity blitz and implements E2EE anyway.
While taxpayer-funded messaging bombards us with "Think of the children" over the next few months, think instead of what else E2EE encryption brings - both its upsides and its downsides.