Let’s work together to ensure we keep children safe online without compromising user privacy
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WHAT IS END-TO-END ENCRYPTION?
Social media has many benefits and is an important part of life for many people. End-to-end encryption is valuable technology designed to keep our data and conversations safe. We are not opposed to end-to-encryption in principle and fully support the importance of strong user privacy. Instead, our campaign is calling for social media companies to work with us to find a solution that protects privacy, without putting children at even greater risk.
Child sex abusers use social media platforms to exploit children and share images and videos of children being abused with other offenders.
Right now, some social media companies can detect child sexual abuse material being shared on their platforms and report it to law enforcement. This plays an important part in stopping child sex abusers, and these companies deserve to be praised for this.
But some are planning to introduce end-to-end-encryption, which scrambles messages so that only the sender and receiver can see what is being shared.
This means they will no longer be able to detect child sexual abuse on their platforms and therefore won’t be able to report it.
If these plans go ahead an estimated 14 million reports of suspected child sexual abuse online could be lost each year. This could have a catastrophic impact on child safety.
WE’RE TELLING SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS: DON’T GIVE CHILD SEX ABUSERS A PLACE TO HIDE.
OUR CAMPAIGN
We want social media companies to confirm they will not implement end-to-end encryption until they have the technology in place to ensure children will not be put at greater risk as a result. They need to show that the changes will not make it easier for child sex abusers to:
- groom children
- make, share or view sexual images of children
- avoid detection by law enforcement agencies
We are not opposed to end-to-end encryption, as long as it is implemented in a way that does not put children at risk. We are in favour of both strong privacy and children’s safety and urge social media companies to protect both.
JOIN US
If someone is abusing children, they should not expect to have their privacy protected by social media companies.
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ABOUT US
Our coalition is made up of a range of organisations from across society. This includes children’s charities, safeguarding experts, safety-tech companies and most importantly, brave survivors of child sexual abuse. We are working to urge social media companies to make sure that children’s safety is put at the heart of any planned changes.
THE NUMBER OF REPORTS OF SUSPECTED CHILD SEX ABUSE ONLINE THAT COULD BE LOST EVERY YEAR
Source: NCMEC
It’s important for everyone to know how to spot the potential signs of child sexual abuse.
If you have concerns that a child is being sexually abused please visit the Stop Abuse Together website, where you can find further advice and details of how to report it.
