Security News > 2023 > October > Element users are asking for protection against government encryption busting

Element, one of the companies behind decentralized comms platform Matrix, says customers are asking it to insert a protective clause from the encryption-busting element of UK government's Online Safety Bill.

Civil liberty campaigners aren't best pleased with the direction of travel, and Matthew Hodgeson, Matrix technical co-founder and Element CEO, has himself been a vocal opponent of the encryption component of OSB. He told us last month: "The government saying 'no scanning until it's technically feasible' is nonsense. Scanning is fundamentally incompatible with end-to-end encrypted messaging apps. Scanning bypasses the encryption in order to scan, exposing your messages to attackers."

"Element told The Register:"Our Fortune-100 customers have started to ask us to put clauses in our contracts which assert that we will never put OSB scanning systems in our software in order to protect their privacy.

Element lists NATO, the United Nations, the US Department of Defence, the German Armed Forces, the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the UK Ministry of Defence, and the French government among its users.

Unsurprisingly, considering its support for the Matrix project, Element is first out of the gate with Element X. This speedy, stripped-down messenger also previews what is coming next year when the full Element app gets a rewrite.

Unsurprisingly, Element noted that the Matrix protocol was eminently suitable for the needs of enterprises in a way that proprietary or centralized products such as Slack or Teams were not.

News URL

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/10/24/element_spy_clause_protection/