Encryption
Maintaining kids’ privacy while keeping them safe and connected online is vital. However, misguided legislation in Congress would counterintuitively weaken the privacy of kids and all internet users. Some bills make platforms legally liable for any user-generated content they are unaware of. This provision would force platforms to stop offering end-to-end encryption because that technology prevents them from surveilling users’ activity, which they would be forced to monitor in order to comply with the legislation. Platforms would need access to every message and post from their users, including communications currently conducted privately through encryption, a tool often used by healthcare providers, schools, businesses, journalists, whistleblowers, and others to share information and records. Congress should prioritize kids’ privacy and safety without unintentionally eliminating end-to-end encryption that all internet users depend on to communicate securely.
Serious Consequences to Limiting End-to-End Encryption:
In order to comply with proposed legislation and avoid costly litigation, online platforms would need total access to monitor users’ activity. Therefore, companies would have to eliminate end-to-end encryption.
The consequences: “This would affect not only the routine tasks many Americans carry out via encrypted services, such as messaging colleagues or friends, accessing medical care, or sharing family vacation photos. It would also jeopardize a critical technology that helps to ensure the safety of refugees, dissidents, and journalists around the world.” - PEN America
End-to-end encryption is an essential tool to keep kids safe online. In combination with existing safety settings for parents, encrypted messaging helps prevent bad actors from using kids’ communications to target them, keeps family photos and videos from getting into the wrong hands, and stops kids’ messages from being used for ad-targeting.
Experts and Advocates Agree End-to-End Encryption is Critical for Kids and All Internet Users
“Just as we buckle them into seatbelts and make regular doctors visits, we keep tabs on what they’re doing online, using tools like encryption to protect them from danger. That’s why we’re so worried about proposals like the EARN IT Act, the STOP CSAM Act, and the Kids Online Safety Act in the U.S. These proposals erode the best tool we have for keeping our kids’ information—like where they live and go to school—private and secure.” - Internet Society
“If enacted, EARN IT will put massive legal pressure on internet companies both large and small to stop using true end-to-end encryption and instead scan all user messages, photos, and files.” - Electronic Frontier Foundation