Florida draft law mandating encryption backdoors for social media accounts billed ‘dangerous and dumb’

A Florida draft bill that would require social media companies to provide encryption backdoors for law enforcement officials to access user accounts has cleared a key legislative hurdle and will now advance to the state’s Senate floor for a vote. Florida lawmakers unanimously approved pushing the bill through committee, per Florida Politics. The “Social Media Use by Minors” (SB 868) bill, if passed into law, would require “social media platforms to provide a mechanism to decrypt end-to-end encryption when law enforcement obtains a subpoena.” The bill would also require social media companies to allow parents or guardians access to a child’s account, and would prohibit child accounts from using features that allow the use of disappearing messaging, the bill reads. Critics, including the tech companies and industry organizations that oppose the bill, have long argued that weakening encryption would make people less safe by compromising the security of their private messages, and could ... Read full article.