WhatsApp could be BANNED in UK after new Online Safety Bill

UK´s most popular messaging app WhatsApp could be banned if it refuses to comply with a new Online Safety Bill that proposes to make end-to-end encryption illegal.

WhatsApp could soon face a ban in the UK if the company does not comply with a new Online Safety Bill which proposes to make end-to-end illegal in the country.  

According to the details proposed in the Bill, cited by Mail Online on Tuesday, April 18, tech companies “will have a duty to find and remove illegal content being distributed through their social networking platforms”.  

With the introduction of this new law, the end-to-end encryption security feature in WhatsApp, which ensures that only the sender and the reader of the message can have access to it, will have to be removed. 

Following the proposal by the UK government, other messaging apps that use the same security features including WhatsApp, Signal, Viber, and Element, have sent an open letter, opposing this move, before it’s finally read at the House of Lords.  

The letter reads, “The UK government is currently considering new legislation that opens the door to trying to force technology companies to break end-to-end encryption on private messaging services”. 

“The law could give an unelected official the power to weaken the privacy of billions of people around the world.” 

“We don’t think any company, government, or person should have the power to read your personal messages and we’ll continue to defend encryption technology”.  

The letter also claims that this security feature is the “strongest possible defence against threats” such as scams, online frauds as well as data theft. 

The open letter has been signed by Will Cathcart, Meta´s head of WhatsApp, who said that he would “refuse to comply with the Online Safety Bill”, during a statement made earlier this year. Cathcart had also stated that “it was puzzling that governments wanted to weaken security in this way, not bolster it”.  

The Bill was first published in draft form in May 2021 and has since been working it way through the parliament.  

It proposed to help “clamp down on online trolling and illegal forms of pornography”, as it puts more responsibility on the platforms that are used by public.  

But the letter claims that, “The Bill provides no explicit protection for encryption, and if implemented as written, could empower Ofcom to try to force the proactive scanning of private messages on end-to-end encrypted communication services – nullifying the purpose of end-to-end encryption as a result and compromising the privacy of all users”.