A proposed bill in Florida seeking to mandate social media companies to create encryption backdoors for law enforcement access to user accounts has progressed past a significant legislative checkpoint and will now proceed to the state Senate floor for a vote.
Florida legislators have unanimously agreed to advance the bill through committee stages, according to Florida Politics.
The bill, titled the “Social Media Use by Minors” (SB 868), if enacted, would require social media platforms to establish a mechanism to decrypt end-to-end encrypted messages when a subpoena is obtained by law enforcement. Additionally, it would mandate social media companies to grant parents or guardians access to a child’s account and would forbid the use of disappearing messaging features on child accounts, as outlined in the bill.
Opponents of the bill, including technology companies and industry organizations, argue that compromising encryption would reduce user safety by weakening the security of private messages, potentially leading to data breaches.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights group, criticized the bill in a recent blog post, arguing that encryption serves as an essential tool for protecting online communications. They expressed concerns that the bill could lead to companies removing encryption for minors, thereby diminishing their safety. The EFF referred to the notion of ‘protecting’ minors by making them less safe as “dangerous and dumb.”
This proposed legislation builds on a previous state law passed that restricts social media usage for individuals under 16 years old. That law is currently under judicial review due to questions about its constitutionality.
Technology companies, such as Apple, Google, and Meta, which owns Facebook, have increasingly implemented end-to-end encryption, allowing only users to access their data, protecting it from potential hackers or malicious insiders. Consequently, these companies claim they cannot provide law enforcement with access to information they themselves cannot decrypt.
The clarity of whether the Florida bill requires social media companies to respond solely to subpoenas remains uncertain. Typically issued by law enforcement without judicial oversight, subpoenas usually do not involve a judge’s signature but can be used to request limited account information, like names, email addresses, or phone numbers, from tech companies. Many companies often insist on seeing a court-authorized search warrant, which requires a higher standard of evidence of alleged criminal activity, before providing access to a user’s private messages.
A similar bill in the Florida House (HB 743) is awaiting a final committee vote before it can advance to the House floor for consideration, according to Florida Politics.
