Politician Thinks Hashtags Can Disable WhatsApp’s End to End Encryption

A politician who insisted WhatsApp’s end to end encryption should be banned has become the subject of ridicule, after suggesting that “the best people” who “understand the necessary hashtags” should work with the government to prevent terrorists being able to privately communicate online.

Home Secretary Amber Rudd has been one of the loudest voices in calling for WhatsApp, Apple and other major tech companies to stop enforcing end to end encryption in their online messaging services, after it was revealed that the terrorist who staged the attacks in London last week had been communicating with people via WhatsApp. Appearing on the Andrew Marr Show, Rudd highlighted her very tenuous grasp on how these private conversations could be prevented.

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Speaking to the BBC host, she said: “The best people who understand the technology, who understand the necessary hashtags to stop this stuff ever being put up, not just taken down, but ever being put up in the first place are going to be them.”

You can watch the excerpt of the interview below:

It’s unclear exactly how Rudd believes “necessary hashtags” would be able to help the government access encrypted messaging services, but her statement has been widely ridiculed online, severely undermining her request to orchestrate a meeting between government officials and tech CEOs such as Apple’s Tim Cook as a result of her lack of knowledge on the topic. During the interview, Rudd repeatedly suggested that tech companies and the government should meet in order to figure out methods in which to provide the latter access to encrypted messaging services such as WhatsApp and Apple’s iMessage, despite services boasting end to end encryption not able to provide such a backdoor.

Disabling end to end encryption isn’t as clear cut a process as Rudd seemingly thinks, and allowing security backdoors into online services greatly places users and their online security at risk, making them more vulnerable to cyber attacks. WhatsApp, Apple and other tech companies utilising end to end encryption have yet to respond to these requests.