Facebook’s encryption plans back under attack by UK lawmaker

The U.K.’s digital minister warned he had “very grave concerns” about Facebook Inc.’s plans to expand end-to-end encryption across all user communications, continuing a longstanding battle by the government against the U.S. company’s messaging tools.

Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Oliver Dowden said both he and Home Secretary Priti Patel are speaking with Facebook “at all levels” about encryption, in a press conference on Wednesday.

“End to end encryption cannot be a way of facilitating child abuse, and so on, and we’ve shared those grave concerns,” Dowden added. “We haven’t ruled out any steps to protect against those abuses.”