Messaging service WhatsApp rejected a UK Government request to create a way to access encrypted messages earlier this year, , citing an anonymous security source. The British Government reportedly asked WhatsApp in a meeting during summer to produce technical solutions that would allow access — known as a backdoor. Sky News reports that 80 percent of investigations into terrorism and serious crime are affected by encryption.

“It is crucially important that we can access their communications — and when we can’t, it can provide a black hole for investigators,” the source said. Extremists are known to use encryption apps like WhatsApp and Telegram to communicate, and an inability to access those messages has been a constant…

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