Many civil rights organizations are warning about EU plans to give law enforcement authorities the maximum possible access to personal data.” Chaos Computer Club (CCC), European Digital Rights (EDRI), Digitale Gesellschaft and about 50 others This is what the organizations wrote. The recommendations of the working group set up by the European Union present “significant threats to the security and privacy of people,” they wrote.
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Signatories also include the German Lawyers Association (DAV), the Echo Association of the Internet Industry, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Privacy International and Statewatch. They criticize the “lawful access by design” concept recommended by the working group, according to which access to unencrypted communications data should be built directly into the technology for investigators.
“In practice, this would require systematically weakening all digital security systems – including, but not limited to, encryption,” Warning voices from civil society“This will undermine the security and privacy of electronic data and communications, endanger the safety of all people and massively restrict their fundamental rights.”
Extended data retention is not possible at all
There is an urgent call for politicians to “reject all measures that could circumvent or weaken the security of encryption.” Otherwise, “the entire digital information ecosystem” will eventually be damaged. A backdoor – or other evasion mechanism – intended for law enforcement can always be exploited by other actors. There are countless examples of this.
Those involved consider HLG’s demand for “the extension of the obligation to retain data to practically all services of the information society, including the Internet of Things” as “particularly worrying”. This “widespread and general surveillance would lead to the entire population feeling that their private lives are under constant surveillance.” Case law from the highest courts in Europe contradicts this. There is also a risk that these measures will be misused to harass journalists, human rights defenders, lawyers, activists and political dissidents.
square the circle
The call for unrestricted access to all personal data is completely “detached from technical or legal realities”. ccc connects“Misguided and exaggerated demands” should under no circumstances serve as the basis for a future EU agenda: “The working group must be closed down, because the secret group is not legitimate anyway.” What prosecutors menacingly call “going dark” simply means that “private individuals, states and economies are ultimately routinely encrypting all data to protect themselves from criminals and espionage.”
Along with the anti-encryption effort as part of the ongoing crypto wars, HLG is also trying to “circumvent the rules of mathematics.” EDRI explainsIn this way it is not possible to “equalize the circle in monitoring and IT security”. This is a “dangerous suggestion” that will not improve with constant repetition. The Digital Society Association reminds that the FBI is also now strongly recommending everyone use encrypted communications in response to Chinese cyberattacks. On the other hand, HLG still does not understand that attacks on encryption threaten the communications security of entire populations on a large scale.
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