Florida’s bipartisan Senate Bill 868 and companion House Bill 743 (Social Media Use by Minors), introduced in February, has been lambasted by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) as a blatantly anti-encryption proposal with the effect of a “wreaking ball to privacy” – while it “pretends to protect children.”
The bills have both progressed from respective committees, with a full vote looming, which prompted the digital rights group to urge the public to speak out against this “dangerous blueprint for mass surveillance.”
If it becomes law, the legislation would require social media platforms to permanently delete certain information, allow parents access to certain accounts belonging to minors, ban platforms from giving minors the option to use ephemeral (“disappearing”) messaging features – but also force companies to disclose data to law enforcement.
To achieve this, the bill wants platforms to build encryption backdoors – i.s., “provide a mechanism” to decrypt end-to-end encrypted data, that law enforcement would have access to based on a subpoena.
And while the bill speaks about minors, it does not go into how platforms would go about determining a user’s age, nor does it mention any explicit age verification requirements.
More: The Digital ID and Online Age Verification Agenda
EFF considers SB 868 to be a direct attack on encryption that affects all users, and in that way an attack on secure communication, and protections from government surveillance.
The group reiterates the argument repeatedly made by proponents of strong encryption, namely, that it is not possible to implement backdoors safely so that only “select” actors – in this case law enforcement – can exploit them.
“It’s only a matter of time before someone else – whether a hacker, abuser, or foreign government – finds it,” EFF explains the perils of weakened encryption.
For this reason, the bill’s declarative goal of protecting children, in reality, exposes them to more risks online, EFF argues and uses another common argument against undermining encryption – namely that law enforcement is well equipped to do its job without legislators passing such radical laws.
EFF makes a point that other than its immediate negative effect on secure communications and broader digital rights, SB 686 also represents “a blueprint” for mass surveillance – suggesting that future legislative efforts could copy its provisions for purposes unrelated to the “think of the children” narrative.
