End-to-end encryption on messaging platforms

What does it mean for human rights?

What is end-to-end encryption?

End-to-end encryption scrambles messages so that only the sender and the recipient can decipher them.

Messages are encrypted on the device of the sender and decrypted on the device of the recipient
Even the company providing the messaging service can’t view the contents of messages

It is considered the most secure and privacy-protective method of communication.

Why is end-to-end encryption relevant for human rights?

The enhanced privacy protections enabled by end-to-end encryption are increasingly relevant for users’ ability to enjoy their human rights in a rapidly changing world marked by several factors:

Rising digital authoritarianism and hostile use of surveillance and spyware
Evolution of digital security to address new threats
Increasingly global and sensitive online communications

What are some specific ways end-to-end encryption can impact human rights?

Click through to explore the scenarios.

Human rights risk

An adult man has been posting increasingly suggestive comments on the social media profile of a teenage girl under a fake account posing as a teenage boy. He eventually DMs her on the social media platform’s connected messaging service, which is end-to-end encrypted. He builds her trust slowly over time, eventually requesting she send him nude photos of herself. She complies, regularly sending him photos under the impression they are starting a relationship. All the while, she is unaware of his age or his intentions.

Because the messaging platform is end-to-end encrypted and the man was using a fake account, behavioral signals tracking did not detect and prevent the interaction from occurring.

Human rights opportunity

The government in Country X does not tolerate dissent. Human rights defenders are regularly arrested for speaking out against the government. Activists know the government regularly monitors SMS messages and phone calls, so they do not feel safe doing their work on unencrypted channels.

When end-to-end encryption was deployed on a popular messaging app, activists were not only able to conduct their daily communications securely, but they were also able to safely interact with and reach larger segments of the population who were all already on this messaging platform. This was a huge boon to their work and ultimately helped their activism reach a larger audience than it ever had before.

Human rights opportunity

In Country Z, homosexuality is illegal and not socially accepted. Members of the LGBTQI+ community are regularly subject to violent attacks and sometimes killed, and even speaking about homosexuality can lead to imprisonment. Because of this, the community often relies on digital means to connect, gather, and share information.

Prior end-to-end encrypted messaging, LGBTQI+ activists and community educators were often identified and targeted via SMS messages, which the government was able to easily intercept due to its ownership over the major telecommunications company. Since having easy access to end-to-end encrypted messaging, the LGBTQI+ community has been able to connect with each other and share information without fear of reprisals.

Human rights risk

Hateful content denigrating a minority religious group is spread across a social media platform. When the content begins to be taken down for violating the platform’s content policies, it spills over onto a messaging platform, which is end-to-end encrypted.

Hateful messages and the photos, addresses, and other personal information of individuals are shared rapidly across different messaging apps. The rapid spread of hate speech contributes to rising tensions and increased division, culminating in riots in which multiple people are severely injured and some are killed.

Human rights risk

Because the messaging platform is end-to-end encrypted and the man was using a fake account, behavioral signals tracking did not detect and prevent the interaction from occurring.

Human rights opportunity

What are the human rights opportunities and risks?

Today’s encryption debate is perceived to pit two opposing groups against each other, with privacy on one side and security on the other. However, the reality is much more nuanced.

There are privacy and security concerns on both sides, along with many other interconnected human rights that are impacted both positively and negatively by end-to-end encrypted messaging.

Opportunities

End-to-end encryption directly enables privacy, which enables:

Physical safety
Freedom of expression and opinion
Access to information
Freedom of belief and religion
Freedom of association and assembly

Risks

End-to-end encryption itself does not directly cause adverse human rights impacts. But users may abuse the privacy protections of end-to-end-encryption to:

Sexually exploit children
Facilitate human trafficking
Spread hate speech
Violate human rights in other ways

What are the main human rights trade-offs?

The expansion of end-to-end encryption involves challenging human rights trade-offs.

For example, a range of techniques have been proposed as solutions to enable end-to-end encrypted messaging apps to identify, block, and report content such as child sexual abuse material.

However, because these techniques can be used to detect a variety of content, a well-intentioned attempt to protect children could be abused by governments to require companies to block legitimate content a government dislikes.

There are potential rights-based paths toward resolving those conflicts, but the evolving nature of the risks involved makes that challenging.

What can companies providing end-to-end encrypted messaging platforms do?

These recommendations can help companies avoid, prevent, and mitigate the potential adverse human rights impacts arising from the use of end-to-end encrypted messaging while also maximizing the beneficial impact it will have on human rights.

Provide more consistent, cohesive, and accessible methods for user reporting and sufficient capacity for review and appeal.
Expand and simplify in-app support and education features for vulnerable groups, such as children or those with lower levels of digital literacy.
Research and report publicly about the effectiveness of mitigation measures.
Invest in harm prevention strategies—the use of metadata analysis and behavioral signals, redirection/behavioral nudges, user education, etc.
Work with relevant stakeholders to address the system-wide challenges of end-to-end encrypted messaging, such as child sexual exploitation online and human trafficking.

See BSR’s Human Rights Impact Assessment on Meta’s Expansion of End-to-End Encryption

Read more about BSR's Human Rights Impact Assessment