Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment her Department has made of the impact of end-to-end encryption on the ability of law enforcement agencies to (a) investigate and (b) prevent online child sexual exploitation.

We have been consistent that the increasing moves to end-to-end-encryption (E2EE) on private messaging spaces, without sufficient safeguards to maintain proactive detection of child sexual abuse (CSA) will have a significant impact on our ability to keep children safe.

In May this year, the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) published their Cyber Tipline report for the year of 2024. This report indicated that globally there were 7 million fewer incidents of suspected child sexual abuse material reported in 2024 compared with 2023, which was partly attributed to the increased rollout of E2EE.

The Government is implementing the Online Safety Act (OSA) regulatory framework, to ensure that online platforms do more to protect their users from illegal content on their services. The Government is clear that platform design, including E2EE does not exempt platforms from their obligations to protect children from CSA.

The Government is committed to using all available levers, such as the Online Safety Act, to ensure children are protected online, and we will not hesitate to go further if necessary.