A Florida draft invoice that will require social media firms to supply encryption backdoors for legislation enforcement officers to entry consumer accounts has cleared a key legislative hurdle, and can now advance to the state’s Senate ground for a vote.
Florida lawmakers unanimously permitted pushing the invoice via committee, per Florida Politics.
The “Social Media Use by Minors” (SB 868) invoice, if handed into legislation, would require “social media platforms to supply a mechanism to decrypt end-to-end encryption when legislation enforcement obtains a subpoena.” The invoice would additionally require social media firms to permit dad and mom or guardians entry to a toddler’s account, and would prohibit baby accounts from utilizing options that permit the usage of disappearing messaging, the invoice reads.
Critics, together with the tech firms and business organizations that oppose the invoice, have lengthy argued that weakening encryption would make folks much less secure by compromising the safety of their non-public messages, and will end in information breaches.
In a blog post last week, the digital rights group Digital Frontier Basis criticized the invoice, arguing that encryption is the “finest device we’ve to guard our communications on-line,” and that passing the legislation would probably end in firms eradicating encryption for minors and making these customers much less secure.
“The concept Florida can ‘shield’ minors by making them much less secure is harmful and dumb,” wrote the EFF.
The Florida invoice builds on a state legislation handed final yr limiting social media for folks underneath the age of 16. The legislation stays largely on maintain whereas it stays under scrutiny in the courts amid questions concerning the legislation’s constitutionality.
Tech firms, like Apple, Google, and Fb-owner Meta, are more and more end-to-end encrypting their customers’ information in order that their non-public content material is barely accessible to the consumer, not even the businesses themselves. This additionally helps to guard customers’ non-public messages from hackers or malicious firm insiders. By encrypting consumer information, the tech firms say additionally they can not present legislation enforcement with data that they themselves can not entry.
It’s not clear if the proposed Florida invoice, as written, would require social media firms to adjust to solely a subpoena, that are sometimes issued by legislation enforcement companies and with out judicial oversight.
Subpoenas are often not signed by a decide, however can nonetheless be utilized by legislation enforcement to compel restricted quantities of account data, resembling names, e-mail addresses, or telephone numbers, from tech firms about their customers. Corporations will typically demand to see a court-authorized search warrant, which requires police to current a court docket with the next diploma of proof of suspected criminality, earlier than turning over a consumer’s non-public messages.
A corresponding bill going via the Florida Home (HB 743) has a remaining committee vote to clear earlier than it should proceed to the Home ground for a vote, per Florida Politics.