British interior minister Suella Braverman has said she has written a letter to Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg, expressing her concerns over the company's plans to introduce end-to-end encryption without appropriate safeguards for children.
The home secretary told parliament about the critical role that tech companies such as Meta play in supporting UK law enforcement agencies, revealing that the information provided by these platforms helps to protect approximately 1,200 children each month.
However, she insisted that Meta's plans may hinder efforts to proactively detect and report instances of child grooming and abuse material on Facebook Messenger and Instagram Direct, saying: "This will be a huge boon to anyone who wants to hurt a child."
Meta-owned messaging app WhatsApp already offers end-to-end encryption by default, which prevents anyone other than the sender and recipient of a message from accessing its contents.
The social media giant is planning to add the feature to both Facebook Messenger and Instagram Direct chats later this year.
Speaking at Home Office questions in parliament, Braverman said: "The information that Meta and other tech companies give to UK law enforcement helps to protect around 1,200 children and leads to over 100 arrests of suspected child abusers every month.
"But Meta plans to roll out end-to-end encryption soon without safeguards.
"They will no longer proactively detect and alert authorities to child grooming and abuse material on Facebook Messenger and Instagram Direct.
"This will be a huge boon to anyone who wants to hurt a child.
"The Online Safety Bill will hold tech firms to account, but indifference to abuse is intolerable.
"I have written to Mark Zuckerberg, along with the security minister (Tom Tugendhat), children's charities, campaign groups to outline our profound concerns.
"And last week I was in New Zealand at the Five Eyes security conference where there was widespread support for working together to ensure social media companies put child safety first."
A Meta company spokesperson said: "The overwhelming majority of Brits already rely on apps that use encryption to keep them safe from hackers, fraudsters and criminals.
"We don't think people want us reading their private messages so have developed safety measures that prevent, detect and allow us to take action against this heinous abuse, while maintaining online privacy and security.
"We remain committed to working with law enforcement and child safety experts as we roll out end-to-end encryption."
