The British government has called for its security services to have access to encrypted messages on WhatsApp following the London attack on March 22nd.
Following the deadly London attack of March 22nd which saw five people killed and another 28 others injured, the British government has stated that its security services must have access to encrypted messaging services such as WhatsApp to prevent similar violent crimes.
Early media reports have cited that Khalid Masood, the perpetrator of the attack, sent an encrypted message through WhatsApp moments before ploughing his vehicle into pedestrians and later stabbing a policeman.
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British Home Secretary Amber Rudd has commented that it was “completely unacceptable” that either British police or security services did not have access to the service.
Referring to the London attack specifically, Rudd commented that “You can’t have a situation where you have terrorists talking to each other – where this terrorist sent a WhatsApp message – and it can’t be accessed.”
WhatsApp introduced end-to-end encryption in April of 2016 in the wake of the FBI’s attempts to access the San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone; the technology encrypts communication between two or more clients so that messages cannot be read by a third party.
Rudd cited that while end-to-end encryption had its place to secure efforts such as banking transactions, she insisted that the service must be accessible to key personnel, such as intelligence agencies.
In an interview with Sky News, Rudd commented that “It’s not incompatible. You can have a system whereby they can build it so that we can have access to it when it is absolutely necessary.”
Rudd is set to meet with “key players” this Thursday to discuss the issue – though whether companies such as Facebook (and, subsequently, WhatsApp) would be willing to build a backdoor into their services is unlikely.
WhatsApp recently came under fire in the UK for its data-sharing practices, and it recently emerged that the application’s web platform introduced a vulnerability through which hackers could access a user’s profile.
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What are your thoughts? Should government agencies be allowed to access messaging platforms such as WhatsApp? Has the recent London attack altered your view on the debate? Let us know your opinion in the comments below!
Follow Bryan Smith on Twitter: @bryansmithSA
Source: Al Jazeera
