At Element, our mission is to provide secure communications to all. We believe that everyone deserves the right to private and safe online interactions. And, everyone means everyone. 🧑🤝🧑 In today's digital age, accessibility is a vital aspect of any product or service. When websites, applications or products are not accessible, it limits certain users’ ability to fully participate.
I can’t believe it but it’s been a year since we last updated you about the progress of Element Call, our Matrix-based VoIP product. We haven’t been resting on our laurels though, a huge amount of work has been going on over the last twelve months, and today we bring an absolutely massive new update in Beta 3 of Element Call.
OMG it’s fast! Element X isn’t just the fastest Matrix client ever - it’s up to 6000x faster than any other Matrix client. Faster than a cheetah, a peregrine falcon, or a speeding bullet! Faster than light! Faster than light in a vacuum!! Seriously, Element X is a transformation and we’re outrageously proud of it. Not only is it faster, but it’s also got a vastly improved interface which delivers a far better user experience.
Today marks the first day of the Report Stage of the Online Safety Bill. As this Bill progresses through the Houses of Parliament, we hope to (once again) raise the alarm around the risks to encryption posed by this Bill. As ever, our concern is around chapter 5 of the Bill, particularly clause 111 (formerly clause 110, before changes in the House of Lords). This is a key section as it defines the approach to notices to deal with terrorism and CSEA content.
Once again we see bureaucrats with a poor understanding of how modern technology works deny ordinary people their right to privacy, as enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 12). This time it’s India, where Element is one of 14 messaging apps blocked by the Central Indian Government which - we believe from media reports - relates to Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000.
As a UK-headquartered company, we’re perhaps the most concerned of all the companies signing the open letter that urges the UK government to radically rethink the Online Safety Bill. As currently drafted the Bill forces messaging services to break their end-to-end encryption by implementing third party scanning of decrypted content, completely undermining the security that end-to-end encryption offers.
Out of Band communications is for classified discussion, business continuity and incident response. It should be used within the most security-conscious parts of the organization; from senior executive discussion to cybersecurity teams. The phrase refers to communicating outside of the usual communication system, such as a reserved channel or network.
Most people know Element as a secure collaboration and messaging app. They know what it looks like on their phone or laptop, appreciate that it’s end-to-end encrypted, and make increasing use of features like threads, polls and location-sharing. In short, they are familiar with the front-end; the client, the app or whatever else you want to call it.
We all want to be able to address abuse on the internet. In the UK, the government is trying to achieve this through the Online Safety Bill (OSB). Developing such a bill is difficult as technology evolves far faster than legislation. But even allowing for that challenge, and that the OSB has some genuinely good intentions, the proposed legislation is still remarkably poor.
In our increasingly volatile world, organisations are having to assess how well they can respond to a crisis. When considering their ability to communicate in a crisis, many companies running mission critical services are turning to Element. Critical national infrastructure is a high value target for all types of physical and cyber attacks, with both profit-minded criminals and rogue nations seeking to benefit by causing major - potentially life threatening - disruption.
