The US, the UK and Australia have called on Facebook Inc to not go ahead with end-to-end encryption across its messaging services unless law enforcement officials have backdoor access, saying that encryption hinders the fight against child abuse and terrorism.
The US and the UK also signed a special data agreement that would fast-track requests from law enforcement to technology companies for information about the communications of terrorists and child predators.
Law enforcement could get information in weeks or even days instead of the current wait of six months to two years.
The latest tug-of-war between governments and tech companies over user data could also affect Apple Inc, Alphabet Inc’s Google and Microsoft Corp, as well as smaller encrypted chat apps like Signal.
Washington has called for more regulation and launched antitrust investigations against many tech companies, criticizing them over privacy lapses, election-related activity and dominance in online advertising.
In an open letter to Facebook and its chief executive officer, Mark Zuckerberg, the three allies said that while they supported strong encryption, it was necessary to balance the need for secure data with public safety.
They urged Facebook and other companies to “enable law enforcement to obtain lawful access to content in a readable and usable format.”
The letter was signed by US Attorney General William Barr, UK Secretary of State for the Home Department Priti Patel and Australian Minister of Home Affairs Peter Dutton.
“Unfortunately, Facebook has not committed to address our serious concerns about the impact its proposals could have on protecting our most vulnerable citizens,” the letter reads.
Child predators have increasingly used messaging applications, including Facebook’s Messenger, to groom children and exchange explicit images and videos. The number of known child sexual abuse images has soared from thousands to tens of millions in just the past few years.
Speaking at an event in Washington on Wednesday, US Associate Attorney General Sujit Raman said that the US National Center for Missing and Exploited Children received more than 18 million tips of online child sex abuse last year, more than 90 percent of them from Facebook.
He estimated that up to 75 percent of those tips would “go dark” if social media companies like Facebook were to go through with encryption plans.
Facebook said in a statement that it strongly opposes “government efforts to build backdoors,” which it said would undermine privacy and security.
Zuckerberg on Thursday said that he had been aware of child exploitation risks before announcing his encryption plan and acknowledged that it would reduce tools to fight the problem.
Speaking in a livestream of the company’s weekly internal question-and-answer session, he said he was “optimistic” that Facebook would be able to identify predators even in encrypted systems using the same tools it used to fight election interference, like patterns of activity and links between accounts on different platforms.
He also suggested that the company might further limit the ways adults can interact with minors on Facebook’s platforms.
The bilateral agreement between the UK and the US would empower the UK government to directly request data from US tech companies rather than asking for it via US law enforcement officials.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts