EU wants back doors into encryption Software 2


It has emerged that Gilles de Kerchove, the EU’s counter terrorism co-ordinator, wants companies to be required by law to hand over encryption keys for communication services, in order to allow interception of messages by EU governments.

The revelation came following the leak of an EU document by civil liberties group Statewatch outlining the proposals for discussion at an informal meeting of Justice and Home Affairs Ministers in Riga on 29 January 2015.

Section 3 (f) of the document states:

Since the Snowden revelations, internet and telecommunications companies have started to use often de-centralized encryption which increasingly makes lawful interception by the relevant national authorities technically difficult or even impossible. The Commission should be invited to explore rules obliging internet and telecommunications companies operating in the EU to provide under certain conditions as set out in the relevant national laws and in full compliance with fundamental rights access of the relevant national authorities to communications (i.e. share encryption keys).

The document is available here.

The issue is also highlighted on the BBC news website in an article on the launch of an encrypted messaging service called MegaChat, by internet entrepreneur Kim Dotcom.


2 thoughts on “EU wants back doors into encryption Software

  • cloudstarer

    By ‘decentralised encryption’ I assume they mean ‘end to end encryption’ i.e. the carrier doesn’t have access to the plaintext at any time, well if this comes to pass everyone had better get used to using PGP and doing their own end to end encryption

  • cloudstarer

    By ‘decentralised encryption’ I assume they mean ‘end to end encryption’ i.e. the carrier doesn’t have access to the plaintext at any time, well if this comes to pass everyone had better get used to using PGP and doing their own end to end encryption

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