The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) has published an article about child sexual abuse on end-to-end encrypted (E2EE) messaging services. A survey of 1,796 UK adults explored attitudes towards the use of end-to-end encryption to detect and remove content showing child sexual abuse.
92% of adults in the UK are concerned about the sharing of child sexual abuse on E2EE messaging services; and 88% agree that the UK government should require companies to use the upload prevention method to detect content showing child sexual abuse before they are sent through E2EE services.
The IWF says the upload prevention safety method is a technically feasible way to detect child sexual abuse in E2EE spaces that preserves privacy and upholds the rights of victims and survivors.
The IWF’s latest paper on E2EE environments provides an overview of how E2EE messaging can be protected from child sexual abuse through this method as well as a snapshot of how this issue is approached globally.