Let’s work together to ensure we keep children safe online without compromising user privacy
DEAR MARK...
Rhiannon is a survivor and subject matter specialist from the Marie Collins Foundation. She recently wrote a letter to Mark Zuckerberg outlining why it’s time to work together on making sure social media platforms protect privacy, without making it easier for child sex abusers to groom and exploit children.
Trigger warning: some viewers may find this content upsetting
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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. However, 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. This plays an important part in stopping child sex abusers, and these companies deserve to be praised for this.
But some are planning to roll out end-to-end-encryption, which scrambles messages so that only the sender and receiver can see what is being shared. Without the right safeguards in place, this will make it much harder for these companies to detect child sex abuse material on their platforms.
In fact, if E2EE is rolled out as planned, 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 make a commitment that they will only roll out E2EE when they have the technology to ensure children will not be put at greater risk as a result. This means having safeguards in place so that 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 E2EE in principle and fully support the importance of strong user privacy. Social media companies have a powerful role to play in stopping child sex abusers from using their platforms to exploit children. That is why we are calling on these companies to work with us to find a solution that protects privacy, without putting children at greater risk.
GET INVOLVED
If someone is abusing children, they should not expect to have their privacy protected by social media companies.
You can support us by sharing our video or showing your support for Rhiannon’s letter.
#noplacetohide
ABOUT US
Our coalition consists 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 asking social media companies to work with us to protect both our privacy, and children’s safety online.
THE NUMBER OF REPORTS OF SUSPECTED CHILD SEX ABUSE ONLINE THAT COULD BE LOST EVERY YEAR
Source: NCMEC
