Canonical and Hreflang Links output encoded

Environment

Operating System: Darwin
Node Version: v18.17.1
Nuxt Version: 2.17.1
CLI Version: 3.10.0
Nitro Version: -
Package Manager: yarn@1.22.19
Builder: webpack
User Config: -
Runtime Modules: -
Build Modules: -

Reproduction

Version: "@nuxtjs/i18n": "^7.3.1"

Describe the bug

Canonical and Hreflang Links output encoded in the head.

Example: <link data-n-head="ssr" data-hid="i18n-can" rel="canonical" href="/en/pages%2Ffaq">

According to our SEO team:

This issue affects the proper indexing of the pages, leading to SEO indexing problems and content duplication concerns.

The canonical link still serves the same content. The issue is that it's telling search engines to ignore the live link and focus on indexing the incorrect coded link that is orphaned.

I've a had look in node_modules/@nuxtjs/i18n/src/templates/head-meta.js.

Below is the output of `this.$route':

fullPath: "/en/pages/faq"
path: "/en/pages/faq"
...

However, the links are generated with currentRoute which outputs below:

fullPath: "/en/pages%2Ffaq"
path: "/en/pages%2Ffaq"
...

Is there a reason that '/' characters are encoded, and is there a way it can be changed?

Additional context

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Logs

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nuxt-modules / i18n