We wanted to update you on a campaign relating to tackling child sexual abuse we have been working on which may be of interest to you and which has gone live today.

As you may be aware, Meta has announced that they will roll out end-to-end encryption (E2EE) on their direct messaging platforms (Facebook Messenger and Instagram Direct Messages) later this year. E2EE is a technology that messaging platforms can use which means messages are only seen by the sender and receiver.

Meta’s plans to implement E2EE with minimal safety measures in place will mean that children are at significant risk as the company will no longer be able to detect images and videos of child sexual abuse. Currently, the information that social media companies give to UK law enforcement contributes to over 800 arrests of suspected child sexual abusers and nearly 1,200 children being safeguarded every month.

Through our campaign, we want to make sure the public is aware of the planned changes to Meta platforms and are calling on Meta to only roll out E2EE with robust safety measures in place that ensure they can still detect and report child sexual abuse. The UK Government remains committed to working collaboratively with social media companies and we call on them to design and develop safety technologies that will ensure their platforms keep children safe as they roll out E2EE.

Some further background information on the campaign is available here – End-to-end encryption and child safety – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

The campaign assets are:

1. Campaign film – please click here to download 16:9 and 4:5 versions of the film, both short and long edits.
   Or access the long edit 16×9  here – https://vimeo.com/865893970/30b5728e14?share=copy and the short edit 16×9 – https://vimeo.com/865893805/99a2495552?share=copy
   The film features Rhiannon-Faye McDonald (a victim and survivor advocate with lived experience and Head of Advocacy at the Marie Collins Foundation), Simon Bailey (former NPCC lead for child protection) and John Carr (Secretary of the UK’s Children’s Charities’ Coalition on Internet Safety). They address Mark Zuckerberg directly and set out the argument for why end-to-end encryption needs to be implemented with child safety measures.
2. Parent guide – the link to the IWF website is now live: www.iwf.org.uk/e2ee-for-parents

This is an information guide for parents and carers developed in collaboration with the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF). This provides information about E2EE and advice for parents to consider if their children are using social media platforms with end-to-end encryption.

We would be grateful for your support to help amplify the campaign, including if you’re able to share the case study film and parent guide on your public channels and disseminate the campaign assets further through your networks.