Will Be Forced To Shutdown Services In UK If Parliament Passes Online Safety Bill: WhatsApp Head

META-OWNED messaging app Whatsapp is likely to shut down its services if the UK parliament passes the online safety bill, which aims to give the U.K.’s internet regulator, Ofcom, power to block noncompliant services in cases of serious infringement. WhatsApp Head Will Cathcart iterated contrasting sentiments and said that the bill, called OSB, will only do the opposite of promoting online safety, noting that it will also undermine the end-to-encryption of secure messaging apps. 

According to a report by BBC, Will Cathcart further asserted that WhatsApp will not compromise to weaken the level of encryption it offers to its users globally and would prefer “being blocked by the UK authorities”.

“There isn’t a way to change [WhatsApp] in just one part of the world. Some countries have chosen to block it; that’s the reality of shipping a secure product. We’ve recently been blocked in Iran, for example. But we’ve never seen a liberal democracy do that,” Will Cathcart as quoted by BBC said.

“The reality is, our users all around the world want security. Ninety-eight percent of our users are outside the U.K. They do not want us to lower the security of the product, and just as a straightforward matter, 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% of users,” the Whatsapp head added.

Apart from WhatsApp, Signal also iterated in a similar voice. Signal would stop services in the United Kingdom if it is directed to weaken privacy, Meredith Whittaker, Signal president, told BBC.

As written, the provisions in the Online Safety Bill are poised to eviscerate privacy while opening new vectors for exploitation that threaten the safety and security of everyone in the U.K. As one of the first of its kind, it could also create a template that would certainly be copied by authoritarian governments. We oppose the Bill in its current form, and believe key provisions need to be fundamentally reconsidered,” Whittaker wrote in a blog post.

What is the proposed Online Safety Bill?

The bill aims to introduce provisions for monitoring certain internet services by Ofcom to prevent children and adults from accessing illegal and harmful content online. Plus, it will make platforms responsible to take action to mitigate such illegal activities on their platforms.