The British government plans to force operators of the messengers to introduce vulnerabilities (“backdoors”) in apps for messaging. About this newspaper the Mirror with reference to the draft document that came into its possession.
These measures will potentially allow the government to monitor private e-mails of citizens in such services like WhatsApp, iMessage and Telegram, in “almost real time”.
They represent an updated version of the Law on the powers of investigation of 2016, which gave the government ample opportunities to expand surveillance capabilities.
In the case of the adoption of the law, the company may be required to provide security agencies the content of private messages within one working day. They should be provided “in an intelligible form” without the “electronic protection”.
The company may also be forced to modify their products to meet the requirements of the government.