THE END OF END TO END ENCRYPTION
In Blow to Online Privacy EU Seizes on Vienna Attack to Enact Long-Desired
Ban on Encryption
If the EU is successful, users will no longer enjoy protection from the
prying eyes of government and criminals on popular messaging apps like
WhatsApp and Signal.
by Alan Macleod
November 09th, 2020
By Alan Macleod
The European Union is rushing through new legislation to get rid of end to
end digital encryption. This would mean the end of privacy for users of
popular messaging apps like WhatsApp and Signal.
A European Council draft resolution on encryption quietly published on
Friday afternoon lays out the EUs Orwellian position in detail. The
European Union fully supports the development, implementation and use of
strong encryption, it states, Encryption is a necessary means of
protecting fundamental rights and the digital security of governments,
industry and society. Yet in the very next sentence it insists that At the
same time, the European Union needs to ensure the ability of competent
authorities to exercise their lawful powers, both online and offline.
These competent authorities (a phrase occurring throughout the document)
refer to law enforcement agencies and judicial authorities.
Protecting the privacy and security of communications through encryption
and at the same time upholding the possibility for competent authorities in
the area of security and criminal justice to lawfully access relevant data
for legitimate, clearly defined purposes infighting serious and/or organized
crimes and terrorism, including in the digital world, are extremely
important, it concludes. Thus, the EUs position is that its citizens
should be able to hide their data from criminals, but not from the
government or its various spying agencies.
The official justification for these new laws, Austrian public service
broadcaster Österreichischer Rundfunk reports, is the Vienna terrorist
attack of November 2, which left five people dead and 23 injured. However,
it notes, the EU has long dreamed of pushing through legislation which lets
it surveil its population. In June, for instance, European Commissioner for
Home Affairs Ylva Johannson gave a speech outlining what must be done to win
the fight against child trafficking and abuse. We must also deal with
encryption. Military grade encryption thats easy to use but impossible to
break makes paedophiles invisible and hides evidence of their crimes from
police, she insisted. Its our obligation to protect children. We must do
what is necessary, she added.
Civil rights group the Electronic Freedom Foundation is not impressed by the
various arguments put forward by the EU in order to justify the end of end
to end encryption, calling it a drastically invasive step.
We are in the first stages of a long anti-encryption march by the upper
echelons of the EU, headed directly toward Europeans digital front-doors.
Its the same direction as the United Kingdom, Australia, and the United
States have been moving for some time. If Europe wants to keep its status as
a jurisdiction that treasures privacy, it will need to fight for it, they
wrote last month.
WhatsApp, a subsidiary of Facebook, has over 2 billion users around the
world and is particularly popular with Europeans. In terms of user
penetration, the top five countries for WhatsApp are all in Europe, with
over 85 percent of Dutch smartphone owners using the service. Commonly
thought to be the most secure messaging app, Signal is also extremely
popular. While it does not reveal how many users it has, its app has been
downloaded more than 10 million times by Android users alone. Launched in
2014, Signal is an open source app specifically created with journalists,
NGO workers, and other professions who share sensitive data in mind. And
while Facebook and WhatsApp have a history of cooperating with governments
around the world, Signal has so far resisted attempts to co-opt or
neutralize its software, notably rejecting the Australian governments
demands to install a spying backdoor for it.
Österreichischer Rundfunk alleges that the campaign against encryption is
being led by France and President Emmanuel Macron in particular; The ground
for this has been prepared since 2015 in a whole series of campaigns,
emanating from Paris, it writes. This week, Macron will discuss further
steps against terrorism with Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz.
While the EU represents just 27 nations and around 450 million people,
decisions the body makes have a profound effect on the rest of the world.
Indeed, Fridays European Council document makes this clear, claiming that,
the EU will leverage its tools and regulatory powers to help shape global
rules and standards. Thus, regulations enforced on tech companies will
likely become the standard in many other parts of the world, if not
globally.
Last Monday, a lone gunman wearing a fake explosive belt opened fire in the
historic center of Vienna, killing four others before police shot him dead.
Authorities stated that the perpetrator, 20-year-old Kujtim Fejzullai, was
an ISIS sympathizer. This is not the first time that terrorist incidents
have been used to justify increasing surveillance laws. Just six weeks after
the September 11 attacks, the U.S. government rushed through the PATRIOT
Act, a piece of legislation that drastically increased the states ability
to spy on its own citizens, even allowing for indefinite detention of
non-U.S. citizens. The act has been continually condemned by rights groups
such as the ACLU and Amnesty International. Likewise, the 7/7 bombings in
London led to unprecedented levels of government surveillance in the United
Kingdom.
While the latest European laws would increase the level of government
pressure on tech companies, the reality is that it is already difficult to
ascertain where one ends and the other begins. Facebook, already partners
with the Atlantic Council, a NATO cutout organization funded by governments
and defense contractors, to help curate its users news feeds. A senior
Twitter executive was found last year to be an undercover British Army
officer specializing in online psychological operations. Meanwhile, last
week Zoom appointed former Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano
to its board of directors. Other communications giants like Microsoft are
also huge defense contractors themselves.
While it is likely impossible to ever end terrorism or child trafficking, it
is certainly possible to end user privacy online. This latest law would
likely do little of the former and a great deal of the latter.
