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A Florida drawing bill that would require societal media companies to render encoding backdoor for natural law enforcement official to access user account has gain a key legislative hurdle and will now advance to the land ’s Senate floor for a vote .

Florida lawmakers unanimously approved pushing the peak through committee , per Florida Politics .

The“Social Media Use by Minors”(SB 868 ) note , if passed into law , would demand “ societal medium platforms to provide a chemical mechanism to decrypt cease - to - remainder encryption when police force enforcement obtains a subpoena ad testificandum . ” The flier would also require societal media companies to allow parents or guardians approach to a fry ’s account , and would forbid tyke accounts from using feature article that countenance the usage of disappearing messaging , the bill reads .

Critics , including the technical school companies and industry establishment that pit the poster , have long fence that weakening encryption would make people less safe by compromising the security of their private messages , and could leave in data breaches .

Ina web log stake last week , the digital rightfulness radical Electronic Frontier Foundation criticized the nib , arguing that encryption is the “ best tool we have to protect our communications online , ” and that go by the law would likely result in companies remove encoding for bush league and making those user less secure .

“ The idea that Florida can ‘ protect ’ minors by make them less good is dangerous and dumb , ” publish the EFF .

The Florida bill build up on a province law passed last year qualify social media for mass under the age of 16 . The practice of law stay on largely on delay while it remainsunder scrutiny in the courtsamid questions about the law of nature ’s constitutionality .

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Tech company , like Apple , Google , and Meta , are increasinglyend - to - end encryptingtheir users ’ data so that their secret content is only accessible to the drug user , not even the troupe themselves . This also helps to protect user ’ private messages from hackers or malicious ship’s company insider . By cipher   user data , the tech companies say they also can not render jurisprudence enforcement with info that they themselves can not get at .

It ’s not light if the proposed Florida bill , as written , would require social media companies to abide by with only a subpoena ad testificandum , which are typically issued by constabulary enforcement government agency and without judicial inadvertence .

Subpoenas are usually not sign on by a judge but can still be used by law of nature enforcement to compel limited amounts of business relationship information , such as names , electronic mail addresses , or telephone numbers , from tech company about their user . Companies will often ask to see a lawcourt - authorized hunt warrant , which demand police force to present a royal court with a higher arcdegree of evidence of suspect criminality , before turn over a user ’s private substance .

Acorresponding billgoing through the Florida House ( HB 743 ) has a final commission balloting to clear before it will proceed to the House floor for a balloting , per Florida Politics .