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MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow8963

The UK government has made no secret of its dislike of encrypted messaging tools, and it has made frequent reference to the problems WhatsApp causes it with regard to investigations into terrorism. Calls have been made by the government to force companies to allow access to encrypted content when asked.

In the wake of Theresa May's "more needs to be done about extremist content" speech, it has emerged that WhatsApp refused to add a backdoor that would allow the government and law enforcement agencies to access private conversations.

Sky News reports anonymous sources as saying that during the summer the government told WhatsApp to devise a way that would enable it to access encrypted messages. While WhatsApp already complies with government requests to provide meta data such as the name of an account holder, associated email address, and IP addresses used, it does not -- and, indeed, due to lack of access itself, cannot -- provide access to, or the content of encrypted messages.

Source: https://betanews.com/2017/09/21/whatsapp-backdoor-refusal/

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