UK children are at risk of greater exploitation and abuse as a result of plans by technology companies to adopt end-to-end encryption to all their messaging services, warns England's Children's Commissioner, Anne Longfield.
A newly-published report from the Commissioner shows that millions of children in England are using messaging platforms despite being under the minimum age requirements. It found that 9 out of 10 children aged 8-17 are using messenger services; with 60 percent of 8 year olds and 90 percent of 12 years old using a messaging app with an age restriction of 13+ years. Almost 1 in 10 children report using a messaging service to chat with people they don't already know; and 1 in 20 have shared photos/videos of themselves with strangers. More than one third of 8-10 year olds and over half of 11-13 year olds admit to lying about their age to sign up for an online messaging service.
The report warns that serious crimes against children, such as exploitation and grooming, can be concealed by the privacy of direct messaging platforms. End-to-end encryption makes it impossible for the platforms themselves to read the content of messaging, stopping police and prosecutors from collecting evidence. The Children's Commissioner's survey found that Facebook-owned WhatsApp is the most popular messaging app for all age groups, used by 62 percent of children. Social media site chat services are also popular, including those attached to Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook and TikTok. With the exception of TikTok, all these sites have announced plans to introduce end-to-end encryption by default.
The report makes several recommendations to help protect children, including introducing new online harms legislation to Parliament in 2021. This legislation should set a strong expectation that platforms must conduct age verification checks on users and allow for strong sanctions against providers failing in their duty of care. The report also recommends strong action from the ICO against platforms not complying with the Age Appropriate Design Code when the transition period ends in September 2021. The Commissioner wants the Government's proposed duty of care to cover 'private communications', and does not want tech companies to implement end-to-end encryption if it reduces children's safety.
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