"In the cases of suspects or perpetrators of serious crime or terrorism, it is crucial that there is effective judicial oversight of the security services’ access to encrypted messages," Abbot said in a statement on the Labour Party's website.
Abbott said that the Labour Party was against indiscriminate perusal of all messages and that "fighting terrorism… should not be used for political grandstanding."
Rudd made his comment on messengers in the wake of the attack in the center of London whose perpetrator was said to have sent an encrypted message shortly before steering his car into pedestrians on the Westminster Bridge and then stabbing a policeman.
End-to-end encryption ensures that data is encrypted on one end and can only be deciphered by the recipient, with no third party, including Internet providers, able to intercept the messages.
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