Europol warns industry and governments about end-to-end encryption

Governments and industry must take urgent action against end-to-end encryption to protect public safety on social media, warns Europol. European police leaders gathered in London last Thursday for an informal meeting. The police leaders of all EU member states and the countries associated with the Schengen Area were invited, along with the Europol Director.

In a joint statement, the participants at the Europol event have now warned against end-to-end encryption in social media. "Privacy protection measures such as end-to-end encryption will be rolled out, preventing tech companies from seeing breaches on their platforms. This will also prevent law enforcement from obtaining this evidence and using it in investigations to prevent and prosecute the worst crimes such as child sexual abuse, human trafficking, drug smuggling, homicide, economic crime and terrorism," explains Europol.

Meta launches end-to-end encryption on messenger platform

This was triggered by Meta starting to roll out end-to-end encryption on the company's messenger platform. The police leaders of the European member states met in London on April 18 at the invitation of the National Crime Agency. Even after Brexit, there will be a regular exchange between Europol and the United Kingdom, a regular strategic exchange on cooperation.

In the specific joint statement, the leaders of the European police authorities write that they "recognize that law enforcement and the technology industry have a shared duty to maintain public safety, especially that of children". "We have a proud partnership of complementary actions in this regard. This partnership is under threat," they add. Two capabilities are essential to ensure online safety. On the one hand, technology companies must be able to respond to law enforcement investigations and respond with data from suspected criminals on their services, "based on legal authority with strong safeguards and oversight". On the other hand, technology companies must proactively detect illegal and dangerous activities on their platforms. "This is particularly true when it comes to identifying users with a sexual interest in children, sharing abusive images and contacting people to commit sexual offenses."

"We are very concerned that the roll-out of end-to-end encryption will undermine these capabilities," the police chiefs explain. "Our societies have not previously tolerated spaces beyond the reach of law enforcement where criminals can communicate securely and child abuse can flourish. Nor should they now." They add: "We know from the protection offered by the dark web how quickly and extensively criminals abuse such anonymity."

They support the development of critical innovations such as encryption as a measure to strengthen the cyber security and privacy of citizens. But a purely binary choice between cyber security and privacy on the one hand and public safety on the other is not acceptable. Absolutism is not useful on either side. "We call on the tech industry to implement security-by-design and ensure that they are given the ability to detect and report illegal activities such as child sexual abuse and to act lawfully and exceptionally on the basis of a lawful warrant," the law enforcement officials discuss, "we call on our democratic governments to create frameworks that provide us with the information we need to keep the public safe."

Demands not new, but controversial

Such demands sound familiar. Last fall, the UK already warned against end-to-end encryption, particularly with regard to Meta's Messenger and Instagram. The new head of the BSI, Claudia Plattner, on the other hand, emphasized in the middle of last year that "there must be more secure end-to-end encryption". In his role as Federal Digital Minister, Volker Wissing even wants to enshrine the right to encryption in law. MEPs are also against mass surveillance and the scanning of end-to-end encrypted communications. Last December, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that Messenger would receive automatic end-to-end encryption.

(dmk)