Facebook: Messages Encryption Services Not Until 2023

Facebook official said, on Sunday, encryption of all messaging services will not be completed until some point in 2023.

Antigone Davis, the boss of safety at Meta, stated that it will keep working with experts to tackle abuse, but insisted that in previous cases the firm was still in a position to help authorities despite services being encrypted.

Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, Davis said: “Our recent review of some historic cases showed that we would still have been able to provide critical information to the authorities, even if those services had been end-to-end encrypted."

“We’ll continue engaging with outside experts and developing effective solutions to combat abuse because our work in this area is never done. We’re taking our time to get this right and we don’t plan to finish the global rollout of end-to-end encryption by default across all our messaging services until sometime in 2023," she added.

However, the social network’s other messaging platform, WhatsApp, is already fully encrypted.

Notably, Facebook’s encryption plans have been previously criticized by the Government, with Home Secretary Priti Patel warning it puts children at risk and offers a hiding place for abusers and other criminals.

Moreover, Andy Burrows, head of child safety online policy at the NSPCC, mentioned that Facebook is right not to proceed with end-to-end encryption until it has a proper plan to prevent child abuse going undetected on its platforms.

"But they should only go ahead with these measures when they can demonstrate they have the technology in place that will ensure children will be at no greater risk of abuse," Burrows noted.

“More than 18 months after an NSPCC-led a global coalition of 130 child protection organisations raised the alarm over the danger of end-to-end encryption Facebook must now show they are serious about the child safety risks and not just playing for time while they weather difficult headlines.”