End-to-end encryption complicates child-abuse content detection

Nationwide encryption strategies are making it harder for authorities to detect child exploitation. Photo / 123RF

• Encryption measures for privacy on social media are hindering the detection of child exploitation.
• The Department of Internal Affairs blocked more than one million attempts to access illegal content last year.
• A watchdog warns encryption will reduce reports, making it harder to catch exploitation.

Encryption measures introduced to improve privacy on social media platforms could be making it harder for authorities to detect child exploitation.

The Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) blocked more than one million attempts to access illegal content such as child sexual abuse, bestiality and necrophilia last year, with 13 people being arrested for possessing, distributing or creating the content.

But the DIA said end-to-end encryption – a privacy system which allows only the sender and receiver to access shared content and blocks third parties from becoming aware of information on communication-based platforms – prevents it from being able to detect and report illegal activity.

End Child Prostitution and Trafficking national director Eleanor Parkes said the increased use of encryption meant content wouldn’t be caught as effectively.

“People will find it quite shocking to see how much child exploitation can be facilitated by those platforms,” she said.

End Child Prostitution and Trafficking National Director Eleanor Parkes predicts that the number of reports of child exploitation will "dry up" as the use of online encryption increases. Photo / 123RF

Currently, when the content is shared through online groups, it can be flagged by protection systems and subsequently investigated by police, the DIA and the international networks they work with.

Parkes said that, with encryption in place, reporting would rely on those within the communication groups to pass it on to police.

“It’s predicted that a huge number of those reports will dry up. The exploitation will still be there, but it won’t be picked up the way it currently is.”

The DIA has a Digital Child Exploitation Filtering System in place to block access to websites known to host illegal child sexual abuse material, even when those sites are using end-to-end encryption.

The system led to 60 search warrants and the seizure of 235 devices last year.

“Investigators are encountering offenders who have amassed increasingly large volumes of illegal material where harm within those files is increasingly severe,” the DIA said.

Parkes said encryption was being rolled out as people were increasingly worried about online privacy, but the DIA figures showed child abuse material was far more common than many people realised.

“This shows how highly vulnerable young people are to being sexually exploited online, and usually through behaviours that are really very normal ways of engaging online these days for young people.

“[This is] a really huge problem, one we can’t keep pretending doesn’t affect us and our young people here in New Zealand.”