Home Secretary and international partners tell tech companies to put child safety first
Seven countries have today published an international statement on end-to-end-encryption and public safety.

Oct 10, Home Office and Priti Patel: Seven countries, whose populations represent a fifth of Facebook’s users across the world, have today (Sunday 11 October 2020) published an international statement on the impact of end-to-end encryption policies which erode the public’s safety online.
A year after the Home Secretary wrote an open letter to Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg requesting the company halts its end-to-end encryption plans unless they can address child safety fears, the UK, alongside the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, India and Japan, have called on all tech companies to ensure they do not blind themselves to illegal activity on their platforms, including child abuse images.
Home Secretary Priti Patel said:
We owe it to all of our citizens, especially our children, to ensure their safety by continuing to unmask sexual predators and terrorists operating online.
It is essential that tech companies do not turn a blind eye to this problem and hamper their, as well as law enforcement’s, ability to tackle these sickening criminal acts.
Our countries urge all tech companies to work with us to find a solution that puts the public’s safety first.