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Saturday, Jun. 27, 2020

Could a bill seeking to protect children from online sexual exploitation undermine end-to-end encryption on messaging services?

Peter Lagershausen, Gigafact
yes

Opponents of a bill introduced earlier this year by Sen. Lindsey Graham, dubbed the EARN IT act, say it could undermine the use of end-to-end encryption techniques used by Apple iMessage, WhatsApp and other services.

"This bill is a backdoor way to allow the government to ban encryption on commercial services," a Johns Hopkins University cryptographer says.

The Brookings Institution, a think tank, calls it a "sneak ban" on encryption. The concern arises from provisions in the bill requiring online services to scan messages for images as part of overall efforts to address "sexual exploitation" of children online–requirements they say would be impossible to meet under current technology without undermining the security of every encrypted message.

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