TikTok will not implement end-to-end encryption in its direct messaging tools, saying that it thinks it will make users less safe.

The organisation, however, faces controversy for the decision, as other social media platforms, including Facebook and Instagram, do encrypt messages.

End-to-end encryption is a security measure that means only the sender and the recipient of a direct message can see it – the message is ‘encrypted’ in transit so that threat actors cannot compromise it, and law enforcement and even firms themselves cannot view encrypted messages without the ‘key’ from a sender or receiver.

This offers the most secure way for people to message each other online, but law enforcement has long scorned the method for obstructing their investigations. There is currently no way that law enforcement can view material sent in direct messages, which some say makes it easier to spread harmful content online or plan for illegal activities.

This worry prompted the Home Office to allegedly issue Apple a secret order to create a ‘backdoor’ for its encryption, which Apple refused to do, instead pulling out its Advanced Data Protection encryption tool from UK users.

Encryption also sparked major debate while the Online Safety Act was still being drafted, with parliamentarians debating whether a backdoor or a screening could be done to scan for harmful or illegal content before data was encrypted. This technology not only may be theoretical, but privacy advocates warned that it would be impossible to ensure user privacy. Ultimately, the Online Safety Act did not issue any changes to encryption.

In the case of TikTok however, concerns seem to lie elsewhere. While the firm has said that it plans to not introduce encryption as it may impede police and safety teams seeing direct messages as part of investigations or interventions, privacy advocates remain concerned.

TikTok is owned by Chinese company ByteDance; while its headquarters are based in California and Singapore, its Chinese ownership led to such controversy in the US that the government forced it to sell its US operations and separate it from its global business to continue operating stateside.

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Concerned parties have long questioned if TikTok’s Chinese ownership would compromise user data, especially if encryption was not employed for direct messaging. Similar concerns were sparked by European privacy advocates following revelations about US online surveillance.

Still, TikTok confirmed its position to the BBC that it would not implement encryption in order to reduce harm to younger users.

The defence comes at an opportune time – Meta is facing backlash from child safety advocates after court documents revealed internal concerns about encryption implementation, in which an executive called the tool “irresponsible”.