A Florida’s plan that would require social media companies to provide encryption to backdoors for law enforcement officials to access the user accounts has cleared a key legislative obstacle and now proceed to the floor of the Senate of the State.
Florida legislators unanimously approved the impulse of the bill through the committee, per Florida’s policy.
THE “Use of social media by minors” (SB 868) The bill, if transferred to the law, would require “social media platforms to provide a mechanism to decrypt from end to end when the law enforcement acquires a summons”. The bill would also require social media companies to allow parents or guardians to access a child’s account and prohibit children’s accounts from using features that allow the use of extinction messages, according to the bill.
Critics, including technology companies and industry organizations opposed to the bill, have long argued that the weakening of encryption would make people less secure, at stake in the safety of their private messages and could lead to data violations.
In A blog post last weekThe Electronic Frontier Foundation of the Digital Rights Group has criticized the bill, arguing that encryption is the “best tool to protect our communications on the Internet”, and that transmission of the law may lead to the abolition of companies to abolish their encryption and securing users.
“The idea that Florida can” protect “minors, making them less safe is dangerous and dumb,” Eff wrote.
The Florida bill is based on a state law passed last year by limiting social media for people under 16 years of age. The law remains largely on waiting while remaining under control in the courts Amid questions about the constitutionality of the law.
Technology companies, such as Apple, Google and Meta, are increasingly encrypting their users’ data, so that their private content is accessible to the user alone, not even to the companies themselves. This also helps to protect the private messages from hackers or malicious companies. By encrypting users’ data, technology companies say that they cannot also enforce the law with information that they themselves do not have access.
It is not clear whether the proposed Florida bill, as it was written, would require social media companies to comply with only one summons, which are usually issued by law enforcement services and without judicial supervision.
Calls are usually not signed by a judge, but can still be used by law enforcement to force limited account information, such as names, email addresses or telephone numbers, technology companies for their users. Companies will often request to see a investigation into the court, which requires the police to present a court with a higher degree of evidence of suspicion of crime, before converting a user’s private messages.
A corresponding account The transition from Florida’s body (HB 743) has a final vote to clear up before proceeding to the floor of the body for voting, by Florida’s policy.
