The Hungarian Presidency of the European Union has proposed that the highly controversial deliberations of the EU High-Level Expert Group on Data Access for Effective Law Enforcement (HLEG) should become “the basis of the political and practical direction” of EU policy.
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This emerges from a classified draft of the presidency’s strategic guidelines for the Ministerial Committee for Home Affairs and Justice, which was published by civil rights organisation Statewatch.
Telegram releases IP addresses and phone numbersAs part of the crypto wars, HLEG worked behind closed doors on a solution to the “wicked problem” of encryption (“going dark”) identified by domestic politicians and investigators. Essentially, it is about enabling access to meta and communication data in real-time, if possible, with persistently encrypted services like WhatsApp, Signal and Threema.
Belgium wants the process through the “front entrance”
For example, the Belgian Federal Police is pushing for a “front entrance” process that does not require any backdoors in encrypted products. A law enforcement agency makes a standardized request to the service provider, which then has to send the requested data in plain text.
As part of HLEG, the EU telecommunications standards authority ETSI also thought of a “trusted certified body” that would obtain and manage an access key. IT security experts consider the involvement of such third parties out of the question.
EU Commission seeks to set out implementation plan
“Fighting online and offline crime is a central concern for maintaining the EU’s internal security,” the Council Presidency writes. On paper. Therefore, the results of HLEG’s work should form the cornerstone of a “European vision of effective data access for law enforcement purposes”.
According to the leaked minutes of the meeting of the EU Standing Committee for Operational Cooperation in the Field of Internal Security at the end of May, the EU Commission wants to present a roadmap to implement the plan against “going dark”.
Civil rights activists warn of an “extreme” plan
Former EU lawmaker Patrick Breyer warned that the public must face “extreme decisions”, including a new version of data retention, “that are already made behind closed doors.” This Big Brother plan “must not become reality because it was hatched in secret by a completely one-sided, democratically illegitimate secret group of surveillance fanatics.”
According to the Hungarian government, the EU should take a “more decisive approach to preventing and countering online and offline terrorism, radicalisation, disinformation, violent extremism and anti-democratic tendencies.”
New agenda in the fight against terror
It is important to maintain “common values and the European way of life.” We will continue to take action against the financing of terrorism in all its forms and “strengthen the exchange of information,” the document says. “To strengthen our decisive approach, now is the time to develop a new counter-terrorism agenda that includes a wide range of strategies and measures.”
The EU should also strengthen cooperation between Member States and international collaboration in this area. It is important to limit the combined threats from external actors and foreign information manipulation.
The EU wants to expand “smart borders”.
“Interoperability promotes the mutual exchange of information and also contributes significantly to the prevention, detection, investigation and prosecution of terrorism and serious crime,” the Presidency highlighted.
The EU is committed to virtually merging and improving IT systems for managing external borders (“smart borders”) and decentralized databases for cooperation in the field of law enforcement in the sense of automated transfers. These systems will become “even more powerful through the gradual introduction of various components of a fully interoperable IT architecture that complies with fundamental rights.”
Biometrics super database is being created
Hungary is thus pointing to the major IT construction site on which the EU is trying to connect all existing and currently established European databases in the areas of security, border management and migration control from 2019. In addition, there should be a high-level “storage for identity data”. Under the banner of “interoperability”, practically a biometrics super database is being created.
EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen (CDU) has appointed her new Interior Commissioner-designate, Magnus Brunner. inspired toto “lead work on a new counter-terrorism agenda” and to update “law enforcement tools for access to digital information and data retention rules”.
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