Politicians may be looking for a roundabout way to thwart end-to-end encryption. Senator Lindsey Graham is drafting a bill, the Eliminating Abusive and Rampant Neglect of Interactive Technologies (EARN IT) Act, that would modify the Communications Decency Act’s Section 230 to make companies liable in state criminal cases and civil lawsuits over child abuse and exploitation if they don’t follow practices set by a national commission. Some of these would be relatively uncontroversial, such as offering parental controls and setting age limits with disclosures. However, the bill also includes requirements to “preserve, remove from view, and report” material as well as retain evidence, and there’s a concern these could be used as pretexts for punishing the use of end-to-end encryption that would make some of this data inaccessible.
