French & German interior ministers call on EU to enable access to encrypted data
In a joint press conference in Paris on Tuesday, the interior ministers of France and Germany called on the European Commission to enact laws that would give countries on-demand access to encrypted communications under some circumstances.
Exchanges via some apps "must be able, as part of court proceedings -- and I stress this -- to be identified and used as evidence by the investigation and magistrates services," said France's Bernard Cazeneuve, according to TechCrunch.
Both countries have been hit by a slew of Islamist terrorist attacks in the past year, killing hundreds of people. Some of the terrorists have relied on apps like WhatsApp and Telegram to communicate -- because both use end-to-end encryption, however, even their developers can't decipher message content.
Cazeneuve and his counterpart, Thomas de Maizi?re, would like the European Commission to have laws enforcing the same rights and obligations for internet services and telecoms operators across Europe, even if they're not headquartered in the European Union. The ministers want their proposals discussed at a September Commission meeting.
If brought into force, such regulations could create serious issues for tech companies like Apple, which uses end-to-end encryption for iMessage content. Effectively, the rules would bar end-to-end encryption entirely, since there's no way of inserting a government-only backdoor into such systems.
They're already encountering opposition from the Computer & Communications Industry Association, and would run counter to July recommendations by the E.U.'s own data protection supervisor, who said that an upcoming update of ePrivacy directives should protect end-to-end encryption, and specifically prevent "decryption, reverse engineering or monitoring of [encrypted] communications."
Exchanges via some apps "must be able, as part of court proceedings -- and I stress this -- to be identified and used as evidence by the investigation and magistrates services," said France's Bernard Cazeneuve, according to TechCrunch.
Both countries have been hit by a slew of Islamist terrorist attacks in the past year, killing hundreds of people. Some of the terrorists have relied on apps like WhatsApp and Telegram to communicate -- because both use end-to-end encryption, however, even their developers can't decipher message content.
Cazeneuve and his counterpart, Thomas de Maizi?re, would like the European Commission to have laws enforcing the same rights and obligations for internet services and telecoms operators across Europe, even if they're not headquartered in the European Union. The ministers want their proposals discussed at a September Commission meeting.
If brought into force, such regulations could create serious issues for tech companies like Apple, which uses end-to-end encryption for iMessage content. Effectively, the rules would bar end-to-end encryption entirely, since there's no way of inserting a government-only backdoor into such systems.
They're already encountering opposition from the Computer & Communications Industry Association, and would run counter to July recommendations by the E.U.'s own data protection supervisor, who said that an upcoming update of ePrivacy directives should protect end-to-end encryption, and specifically prevent "decryption, reverse engineering or monitoring of [encrypted] communications."
Comments
I hope they remember that they made it so.
What a reversal change in direction now
Blaming "terrorists" is a very well known, and very old strategy. Unfortunately, they've dumbed down the critical thinking skills of so many, and then scared them with violence that actually results in fewer deaths compared to solvable problems they don't bother to address (like launching aggressive wars on innocent countries).
This is why the politicians seem so ridiculous on this matter. They are disingenuous.
Capital accumulation is stalled and the method for reviving it the last go around threatens the end of all life on the planet. We need an international movement to facilitate rapid automation with simultaneous guarantees of human welfare for the vast majority that will never again be "employable". Without the latter, I fear something along the lines of the holocaust in terms of eliminating surplus labor power in order to save the accounting system that keeps a layer of the population in power.
With that said I really doubt this would be effective against terrorism.
Strong laws against encryption to protect us from terrorists -- will be about as effective as strong laws against guns are protecting us from criminals.
And now, with even speculation of someone walking out with some of the "keys" (not literally) to some of the NSA (or other) kingdom(s), it's just clearly a bad idea. Say Apple had or does build a (vulnerable) version of iOS that the US govt puts on an air-gapped system with even just 1 person having access. You'd have to trust (guarantee 100%) that one person couldn't be manipulated in anyway (to run away with said material).