Dear shareholders,

You as shareholders have a powerful voice in the fight to keep children safe online

A record 29.3m items of child abuse imagery were found and removed across the internet in 2021, according to data from the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), the US non-profit organisation in charge of coordinating reports. There were 22m pieces of child abuse imagery reported from Facebook alone 

We know this is a complex issue which requires nuanced debate. Meta recently funded a third-party organisation BSR to write a comprehensive report and, unsurprisingly, it supports the roll out of E2EE across all platforms. Child protection experts and survivors do not feel reassured by this.  That is why we are making this plea to you, ahead of Meta’s Annual General Meeting next week to ask for the protection of children online to be prioritised by the Board. 

No risk can ever be fully eliminated. But children, their parents, and survivors of child sexual abuse want to know that your company is doing everything it can to prevent child sexual abuse.  We are not asking for an end to E2EE, nor for any curb on privacy. We are simply asking Meta to make a commitment that they will only extend the use of E2EE on their sites when they have in place the safeguards to ensure this 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

It is time to stop presenting this as a binary choice between children’s safety and user privacy and, instead, work constructively together at ways to protect both. Professor Hany Farid, one of the world’s leading cybersecurity experts, and the architect of the very technology Facebook currently uses to detect abuse, has gone on the record to say a solution is possible, if the will is there from tech companies.

Please use your voice to help us to make sure Meta does not turn the lights out on its ability to detect and prevent child sex abuse.

Yours sincerely,
Advocates for the protection of children and survivors online


SIGNATORIES

Signed on behalf of organisations and survivors including:

Barnardo’s
Be Brave Movement
Childnet International
Children’s Society
Child Rescue Coalition
Internet Watch Foundation
Into The Light Counselling
John Carr OBE, Secretary of the UK Children's Charities' Coalition
Lisette Cooper, Vice Chair at Fiduciary Trust International
Lucy Faithfull Foundation
Marie Collins Foundation
National Exploitation Response Unit (NWG Network)
NSPCC
Off the Record (OTR)
Paul Stewart, Survivor, advocate and ex footballer
Policing Institute for the Eastern Region (PIER)
Proxy Impact
Rhiannon-Faye McDonald, Survivor and Subject Matter Specialist (MCF)
Rape Crisis
SafeToNet
SHE UK
Stepping Stones North Wales
SupportLine
Support For Survivors CIC
Survivors Trust
Wisdom Lotus Foundation


If you would like to be a signatory please get in contact at newsletter@noplacetohide.org.uk