The U.K. government launched a "No Place to Hide" campaign last month in an effort to kill off end-to-end encryption. The Home Office hired an advertising agency and paid them between £534,000 to £724,000 to convince people that encrypted messages are dangerous to children.
The campaign's main goal was to prevent Facebook from expanding its use of end-to-end encryption. Currently, the social media giant's WhatsApp messaging system uses end-to-end encryption, but its other communication systems like Facebook messenger are scanned and checked against a U.S. government database to identify child abuse images. This is run by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC).
According to Rolling Stone1, M&C Saatchi pitched this idea to the U.K. government's home office. They proposed a virtual P.R. stunt to install a glass box in a public space with an adult and child actor with their smartphones. Gradually the box would turn opaque, making it difficult to see the actors in the box, making people uncomfortable, and forcing Facebook to think about their decision.
Facebook Messenger scans its messages and sends NCMEC millions of reports of possible child abuse images. These reports include over 75,000 reports from the U.K. According to Facebook's analysis2, most of the reports are likely not malicious and have been shared for other reasons. This adds a question to the U.K. Home Office's claims on the impact of end-to-end encryption on child safety.
The attempt by the U.K. Home Office fell short as citizens condemned the campaign on social media. The Information Commissioner's Office responsible for protecting data privacy also came out and stated the importance of encryption in safeguarding online safety and privacy and shut down the campaign.
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