Facebook and WhatsApp will be forced to share users private data with the UK police, following the new US-UK treaty which is set to be signed next month.
The new Cloud Act mandates Facebook and WhatsApp to disclose the electronic communications on their platform to the British authorities. While the Act clearly states that UK courts can request for "electronic communication", the Charter notes that it "does not create any authority for law enforcement to compel providers to decrypt communication."
Just to be clear with the new agreement, the Cloud Act also clearly states that law authorities can't compel providers to "decrypt communication". That means, law enforcement officials would still need the tech giant to decrypt the communications if the tech giant at a point would be forced to share users conversation, a thing Facebook vows never to do.
The UK's home secretary, Priti Patel, called out social media platforms to develop "back doors" which will allow authorities to access all the information shared between users, so as to curb the spread of hate speech, child sexual abuse material and other negative trends.
The British authorities will get access to metadata information such as timestamps, profile pictures, IP addresses, contact lists, etc. Soon, the new Act will also demand Facebook Messenger and Instagram to tend to court orders from the UK, since they don't offer end-to-end encryption, in the first place.