Back in June Patently Apple posted a report titled "47 Silicon Valley Signatories urge the UK's GCHQ to Abandon its Plans of adopting the so-called 'Ghost Protocol'." In an open letter to GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters), 47 signatories including Apple, Google and WhatsApp had jointly urged the U.K. cybersecurity agency to abandon its plans for a so-called "ghost protocol."

The open letter to the GCHQ came after intelligence officials at GCHQ proposed a way in which they believed law enforcement could access end-to-end encrypted communications without undermining the privacy, security or confidence of other users. The letter fell on deaf ears and Silicon Valley's nightmare is about to go into law.

A news story over the weekend reported that social media platforms based in the U.S. including Facebook and WhatsApp will be forced to share users’ encrypted messages with British police under a new treaty between the two countries.  

The accord, which is set to be signed by next month, will compel social media firms to share information to support investigations into individuals suspected of serious criminal offenses including terrorism and pedophilia.

Priti Patel, the U.K.’s home secretary, has previously warned that Facebook’s plan to enable users to send end-to-end encrypted messages would benefit criminals, and called on social media firms to develop "back doors' to give intelligence agencies access to their messaging platforms.

Facebook said in a statement: "We oppose government attempts to build backdoors because they would undermine the privacy and security of our users everywhere: Government policies like the Cloud Act allow for companies to provide available information when we receive valid legal requests and do not require companies to build back doors."

The U.K. and the U.S. have agreed not to investigate each other’s citizens as part of the deal, while the U.S. won’t be able to use information obtained from British firms in any cases carrying the death penalty.

The story was covered by the UK publication, The Times. You could read their full report here, though it's behind a paywall. You can get a 30 day free trial in order to read the report. You can also read the Bloomberg report in full here.

The Times stated that "The data access agreement, which marks the culmination of four years of intense lobbying by the UK, is seen by Downing Street as an essential tool in the fight against terrorism and sexual abuse."

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