Encryption keeps our messages and information safe when we send them over the Internet. It scrambles the words and pictures into a format that only the person with the right key can understand. End-to-end encryption is the strongest form of encryption, where only the sender and recipient have access to what has been shared–even the platform does not know the content of the messages.
With the amplification of harms online, governments have been trying to address crime, hate speech, and harmful content online. Governments argue that having access to encrypted content is necessary for safety and public security, but weakening or breaking encryption opens the door for bad actors, like hackers or other governments, to exploit the same vulnerabilities. Diluting encryption also puts personal, business, and national security at risk.