India has become one among the seven countries to join the UK-led campaign against end-to-end encryption of messages by social media giants such as Facebook, which according to them hinder law enforcement by blocking all the access to them.

The UK, India, the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan issued a joint international statement addressed to all tech companies to make sure that they do not blind themselves to illegal activity on their platforms.

About the statement issued on Sunday, UK Home Secretary Priti Patel said, “We owe it to all of our citizens, especially our children, to ensure their safety by continuing to unmask sexual predators and terrorists operating online”; a PTI report carried by Times of India quoted her as saying.

She, on behalf of the seven countries, urged all the tech companies to work with them to find a solution to putting the public’s safety first.

The international statement refers to the fact that the populations of the seven signatory countries represent a fifth of Facebook's users across the world and claimed that end-to-end encryption policies such as those employed by the social media giant erode the public's safety online.

End to end encryption prevents law enforcement from investigating and prosecuting the most serious crimes being committed on these services such as online child sexual abuse, grooming, and terrorist content, the statement said.

The UK and its international partners called on tech companies to ensure there is no reduction in user safety when designing their encrypted services; to enable law enforcement access to content where it is necessary and proportionate, and work with governments to facilitate this.