Here’s why Apple’s latest update will be a serious problem for all WhatsApp users...
“Whatever Apple calls it,” EFF warned when the update was announced, “it’s no longer secure messaging... Its compromise on end-to-end encryption is a shocking about-face for users who have relied on the company’s leadership in privacy and security.”
Apple’s iMessage update requires an adult in a family group to enable it for children in the same group. Originally, Apple planned to warn over-13s they were sending or receiving explicit content but would also notify parents when-13s ignored its warnings and viewed imagery anyway. Apple has revised those plans, and the latest beta goes no further than the on-device warning for any age of minor.
Apple’s proposed iMessage update is a gift to the security hawks pushing for such changes. Apple is essentially saying it can run device-side AI to classify content and then warn users if a certain type of content is identified. Apple says it can do this without breaching end-to-end encryption. Apple basically says it can do exactly what lawmakers have been pushing for—a best of both worlds solution, that’s just missing a few additional classifiers and a reporting function.
And so, to WhatsApp, part of the Facebook/Meta empire that already reports huge amounts of child endangerment imagery and other content. While Facebook itself and Messenger, both without default end-to-end encryption, can scan content to identify known abuse imagery, WhatsApp has to rely on metadata and public-facing content—such as public-facing group names and profile information.
If you followed Apple’s implied definition of end-to-end encryption, then all of that WhatsApp client-side content would fall outside its parameters. That’s dangerous ground to tread. It brokers the argument that endpoints can be fair game without breaching the critical security of the platforms. Apple cannot have it both ways. It’s either end-to-end encrypted or it isn’t.
Apple has now posed a tortuous question for WhatsApp, which is easily capable of developing and introducing its own app-side classifiers to detect dangerous content. As such, the concept of reporting obligations fundamentally changes. The defense today is that content monitoring is simply not possible, the platforms are not designed that way; but what’s currently black and white is about to turn very grey.
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