As the Online Safety Bill enters its final checks in the House of Lords today, the controversial bill has undergone a major reshape in its last hours of debate.

According to a breaking report by the Financial Times, the government is set to back down from perhaps the most contentious clause in the bill, surrounding the potential end of end-to-end encryption.

As reported by the FT, the UK government is will not enforce pre-emptive scanning of encrypted messaging for harmful content until Ofcom – the telecommunications regulator – can prove it is technically feasible to do this without completely compromising the integrity of encryptions.

The draft bill has gone under numerous changes and undulations through the administrations of three prime ministers – the encryption clause, however, has seen the most contention across parliament, the public, companies, and human rights groups.

As the bill stood prior to the statement, Ofcom would be empowered to force companies offering encrypted messaging services to scan messages for illegal content prior to encrypting and sending the message.

Companies like WhatsApp and Signal pushed pack against the proposition, saying that this clause would undermine the privacy inherent in encrypted messaging and violate people’s privacy. WhatsApp notably threatened to exit the UK market if the law was enforced.

Privacy watchdogs have also said that a compromise on end-to-end encryption would allow for increased state surveillance and invade people’s online privacy.

While the government tried to lessen fears and say that they could scan messages without infringing on people’s privacy, the tech world scoffed – tech leaders simply said the technology does not yet exist, and could even take years to develop.

The new statement, as reported by the Financial Times, acknowledges the lack of technology to allow encrypted messaged to be scanned for harmful and illegal content without infringing on people’s privacy – a prospect which feels ultimately counter-intuitive.

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Still, the conversation surrounding end-to-end encryption has dominated headlines concerning the Online Safety Bill, transforming the discussion from one about protecting children and vulnerable groups online to protecting online privacy.

The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) found an 82% rise in online grooming crimes against children in the last five years, with one in four of these crimes against primary school children.

As 73% of these crimes involved Snapchat and sites owned by Meta, the charity has urged for big tech to be regulated to prevent such serious crimes from occurring on a continually large scale.

“No-one is questioning that more must be done to protect people, especially children, online,” Martina Larkin, CEO, Project Liberty, said. “However the debate should not be about protecting children versus protecting privacy. We can have, and should have, both.

“When it comes to how we build a better web, everybody loses when rash decisions are made. Trying to protect children by building backdoors into encryption will have unprecedented negative consequences for online privacy, the use of people’s data as well as the protection of free speech and democratic values.

“No-one would ever willingly let a complete stranger read all of your mail, put cameras in their house, and follow their every move. So why do it online?” she questioned.

It remains to be seen what the House of Lords will decide regarding the Online Safety Bill, and leaves more questions as to who the bill will actually protect if ratified.