Turns out Brits would quite like their private messages to stay private
Polling finds two-thirds don't trust this government, or any future one, with access to their encrypted chats
A recent poll has revealed that the majority of British adults are staunchly against granting the government access to their encrypted messages. According to the Center for Democracy & Technology's (CDT) study, 93% of British adults believe they have a right to private online conversations, while 89% think nobody should be able to access their personal messages without a court order.
Even more surprising for the government, two-thirds of respondents doubt they could trust any government, past or present, with the ability to access encrypted messages. This lack of trust cuts across party lines, with a significant portion of voters from each major political party expressing similar reservations. The poll, conducted by Public First, surveyed 2,000 British adults in April, with a margin of error of 2.2 percentage points.
As the UK government and tech companies clash over encryption, the public's stance remains firmly against the government's desire to access encrypted data. Despite the controversy surrounding companies like Apple, only a small fraction of respondents (12%) supported the government's ability to secretly order companies to provide access to users' information.
Written by urgent.news from The Register Science's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
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