Facebook's plans to roll out end-to-end encryption across its messaging services have stirred up a controversy with Britain, the United States and Australia urging the company to allow back-door access to private communications.

An open letter jointly signed by UK Home Secretary, Priti Patel; the US Attorney General, William Barr; the US acting Secretary of Homeland Security, Kevin McAleenan; and the Australian Minister for Home Affairs, Peter Dutton insisted that the social networking giant review its plans and provide for "lawful access to the content".

The letter comes off the back of a landmark data access agreement between London and Washington that would enable law enforcement agencies of both nations to demand user data directly from tech firms without seeking clearance from the concerned government.

The UK-US Bilateral Data Access Agreement is expected to reduce the time to access information, from months and years to weeks or even days.

Priti Patel endorsed the deal saying it would "dramatically speed up" investigations into crimes such as terrorism and child sexual abuse.

The Facebook encryption dispute can be traced back to an announcement made by chief executive Mark Zuckerberg in March when he envisioned a "privacy-focused future" for the online platform and the firm's other services, including WhatsApp and Instagram.

Responding to the letter Facebook said: "Ahead of our plans to bring more security and privacy to our messaging apps, we are consulting closely with child safety experts, governments, and technology companies and devoting new teams and sophisticated technology so we can use all the information available to us to help keep people safe.

"We strongly oppose government attempts to build backdoors because they would undermine the privacy and security of people everywhere."