UK: House of Lords mulls over Online Safety Bill amid opposition from tech platforms

The UK Online Safety Bill is making its way through the British Parliament. The bill has already passed its third reading in the House of Commons and now is being debated by the House of Lords. Dubbed as UK's 'masterplan', the bill was initially meant to create one of the toughest regimes for social media and other online platforms. Online Safety Bill has expectedly found opposition from social media platforms. The bill is currently in the committee stage in the House of Lords.

Whatsapp, the popular messaging platform owned by Meta, has been one of the most vocal opponents of the bill.

Last month, WhatsApp and some other platforms wrote an open letter calling for an "urgent rethink" of the legislation.

UK-based signatory, Element, warned it could leave the country if the law is passed. 

"The UK government is currently considering new legislation that opens the door to trying to force technology companies to break end-to-end encryption on private messaging services," WhatsApp said in an open letter on its blog page dated April 17.

The letter was signed by WhatsApp head Will Cathcart and top bosses of other messaging services like Signal and Wire.

"We don't think any company, government or person should have the power to read your personal messages and we'll continue to defend encryption technology," said the letter.

Critics of the legislation say that it may pave the way to empower the UK government to force tech companies to break end-to-end encryption.

The proposals in the bill were watered down in November last year. A requirement to stop "legal but harmful content" was removed to protect free speech. The focus was then put on illegal content, especially related to child safety.

The British government has said that the bill in "no way represented a ban on end-to-end encryption, nor would it require services to weaken encryption".

But it wants regulator Ofcom to be able to make platforms use accredited technology or try to develop new technology, to identify child sexual abuse content.

WhatsApp had already said it would refuse to comply with the Bill at the risk of even being blocked in the country, which has triggered speculation that it could exit the UK market.