Facebook is reportedly building a team tasked with learning how to analyze encrypted data without decrypting it. Given the company's history with user privacy, this seems like the last thing they'd want to have anything to do with, but here we are, and things aren't quite as we imagined.
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The social media giant confirmed the news to The Information, and it is apparently one of several tech companies interested in a field known as uniform encryption. Experts told the publication that Facebook may be interested in studying encrypted messages on its messaging platform WhatsApp for targeted advertising purposes.
Optionally, Facebook may want to further encrypt information without affecting ad targeting capabilities.
Regardless of intent, the whole thing is extremely unethical. If Facebook or other companies (Amazon, Google, and Microsoft were specifically named by The Information) can glean information from encrypted data, do you still call it technically encrypted?
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And what laws are being violated here? If the companies in question aren't technically trying to break the encryption, is this practice illegal? And if tech companies are able to glean information from encrypted data, what would stop a government agency or even a malicious third party from doing the same?
Information source: techspot.com
