UK government reportedly planning anti-crypto marketing campaign

The UK state’s obsession with end-to-end encryption shows no signs of abating, with a dubious £0.5m advertising campaign set to kick off.

We have Rolling Stone to thank for the scoop. He got his hands on some documents indicating that the British government hired the advertising agency M&C Saatchi to launch an advertising campaign designed to convince the public that end-to-end encryption, particularly in direct messaging applications such as WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, is bad.

As with most state attempts to restrict freedom and civil liberties, this power grab is in the name of security. It looks like the campaign will lazily lean on the ‘think of the children‘ cliché, with dodgy ads featuring adults peeking at children, seemingly to imply that encryption facilitates child abuse.

…but you have to admit it will be worth it to see how the crowd “will someone not think of the children (and impose the authoritarianism of security technologies to protect them) will respond to an adult who looks maliciously at an actual child in a confined space. https://t.co/PqmnPCYKOJ

— Heather Burns (@WebDevLaw) January 16, 2022

“We engaged M&C Saatchi to bring together the many organizations that share our concerns about the impact end-to-end encryption would have on our ability to keep children safe,” a Home Office spokesperson told Rolling Stone. .

As someone who day-to-day is very concerned about privacy and security, privacy features such as end-to-end encryption ARE a security feature.

There is no tension between security and privacy. It’s hard to fathom (given the long history of child sex offenders using…

— Mallory🦖🦕Dinosmore (@Chican3ry) January 16, 2022

A freedom of information request sent last September by someone other than the author of the article finally obtained a responnse confirming that the budget for this campaign is £534,000. It is reasonable to question this expenditure at a time of economic stress for the country, but the greatest concern is the possible ulterior motives of this initiative.

The serious aim of this campaign (which started in 2019 by the way) is to make it difficult to roll out new encrypted services. The UK doesn’t really care how to solve end-to-end encrypted scanning.

— Matthew Green (@matthew_d_green) January 16, 2022

The British State had a problem with encrypted messaging for years and there are indications that he is also responding to pressure from his allies (which usually means only the United States). The ongoing Covid pandemic emergency has greatly whetted the appetite of governments around the world for increased surveillance powers. Encryption is a major impediment to that ambition, but like so many of the government’s brilliant ideas over the past two years, this untimely extravagance is likely to come to nothing, at best.

Ridiculous. The equivalent of criticizing door manufacturers for including locks. After all, it makes life easier for the police if they can enter directly. https://t.co/okRlKXLSEo

— Martin SFP Bryant (@MartinSFP) January 16, 2022