Crypto Wars: Hungarian Presidency continues fight against encryption
According to a draft by the Council, EU member states should implement recommendations from the "Going Dark" expert group to address the "encryption problem".
An EU expert group continues to work on a plan against encrypted communication, as a revelation by Statewatch shows.
(Image: issaro prakalung/Shutterstock.com)
The Hungarian Presidency of the Council of the EU has proposed that the highly controversial considerations of the EU High-Level Expert Group on Data Access for Effective Law Enforcement (HLEG) be made the "basis of the political and practical orientation" of EU policy.
This emerges from a confidential draft of the Presidency's strategic guidelines for the ministerial body for home affairs and justice, which was published by the civil rights organization Statewatch.
As part of the Crypto Wars, the HLEG has been working behind closed doors on solutions to the "wicked problem" of encryption ("going dark") identified by domestic politicians and investigators. In essence, the aim is to enable access to metadata and communication data in real time for end-to-end encrypted services such as WhatsApp, Signal and Threema.
Belgium wants procedures via the "front door"
The Belgian Federal Police, for example, is pushing for a "front door" procedure that does not require back doors in encrypted products. A law enforcement agency makes a standardized request to the service provider, who then has to send the desired data in plain text.
As part of the HLEG, the EU telecommunications standardization authority ETSI also considered a "trusted authenticated entity" that would receive and manage an access key. The involvement of such third parties is considered by IT security experts to be an indisputable breaking point.
EU Commission wants to plan implementation
"The fight against online and offline crime is a central concern for safeguarding the EU's internal security", writes the Council Presidency in the paper. The results of the HLEG's work should therefore form the cornerstone of "the European vision of effective data access for law enforcement purposes".
According to the leaked minutes of a meeting of the EU Standing Committee on Operational Cooperation on Internal Security at the end of May, the EU Commission intends to present a roadmap for implementing the plan against "going dark".
Civil rights activist warns against an "extreme" plan
The public is to be confronted with "extreme decisions", including a new version of data retention, "which have already been taken behind closed doors", warned former MEP Patrick Breyer. This Big Brother plan "must not become reality, if only because it was secretly concocted by a completely one-sided, democratically illegitimate secret group of surveillance fanatics".
According to the Hungarian government, the EU should also "take a more determined approach to preventing and combating terrorism, radicalization, disinformation, violent extremism and anti-democratic tendencies on the internet and offline".
New agenda in the fight against terror
It is important to uphold "common values and the European way of life". Further action will be taken against the financing of terrorism in all its forms and "the exchange of information will be strengthened", the document states. "To underpin our determined approach, it is time to develop a new counter-terrorism agenda, covering a comprehensive range of strategies and measures".
The EU should also strengthen cooperation between member states and international cooperation in this area. Limiting hybrid threats from external actors and foreign information manipulation is of central importance.
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", emphasizes the Presidency.
The EU remains committed to virtually merging and further improving the IT systems for managing external borders ("Smart Borders") and the decentralized databases for cooperation in the area of law enforcement in the sense of automated transfer. These systems would become "even more efficient through the gradual introduction of the various components of a fully interoperable IT architecture that complies with fundamental rights".
Biometric super database in the making
Hungary is alluding to the large-scale IT construction site on which the EU has been attempting to link all existing European databases in the areas of security, border management and migration management since 2019. An overarching "identity data repository" is also planned. Under the banner of "interoperability", a biometric super database is practically being created.
EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen (CDU) has called on her designated new Commissioner for Home Affairs, Magnus Brunner, to "lead the 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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