“Whatsapp has said if the upcoming Online Safety Bill tries to force the company to weaken its end-to-end encryption for users, it will leave the UK market right away.”

Whatsapp, the chat platform owned by Meta (Previously Facebook) has said if the upcoming Online Safety Bill tries to force the company to weaken its end-to-end encryption for users, it will leave the UK market right away.

In an announcement, Will Cathcart, Whatsapp Head slammed the UK legislation as the most concerning set of online regulations in the western part of the globe.

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Will Cathcart, Whatsapp Head, said, We've recently been blocked in Iran, for example. But we've never seen a liberal democracy do that. Ninety-eight percent of our users are outside the UK. It would be an odd choice for us to choose to lower the security of the product in a way that would affect those 98 percent of users.``

WhatsApp's Head said he is worried that the upcoming bill and regulations make it tough for Whatsapp and other messaging platforms to provide end-to-end protection using encryption technology. 

What does the Upcoming Bill Say?

A provision in the new Online Safety Bill needs tech firms to use “Accredited Technology” for scanning the chats and messages and monitor child sexual abuse material or CSAM.

Security experts executing such regulation for accredited technology will be impossible without breaking end-to-end encryption.

The Online Safety Bill also puts liability of giant tech companies and firms that fail to fall in with new rules could have to pay 18 million pounds as a fine or 10% of their annual global turnover, whichever is highest.

The new provision would include more strict and quicker criminal sanctions for tech firms and new criminal offenses if they falsify and destroy such data.