EU plans to require backdoor to encrypted messages for child protection

[numike]

Content source

https://appleinsider.com/articles/22/05/11/eu-plans-to-require-backdoor-to-encrypted-messages-for-child-protection

A leaked European Union proposal shows plans to mandate CSAM scanning for child protection in all encrypted messaging services.
EU plans to require backdoor to encrypted messages for child protection | AppleInsider

 

[vtqhtr413]

"Encryption faces an existential threat in Europe" say's Proton CEO Andy Yen​

Andy Yen is positioning himself to be Europe’s answer to Google cofounder Larry Page. Like Google, Yen’s company Proton offers services including email, calendar, drive storage, and VPN, just with a privacy twist. All its products are encrypted. But unlike Google, nine-year-old Proton has had to try and grow its business in the shadow of the tech giants. That has been a huge disadvantage, says Yen, because companies like Google and Apple can exploit their dominance to nudge users to use their apps as well as their phones. If a person buys a Google Android or Apple iPhone, they are offered a default email service, search engine, and calendar app. “The defaults just so happen to be the services that [these companies] themselves provide,” complained Yen in 2021. He was well aware that people favor convenience. “What we know from studies is that 95 percent of people will not change the defaults.”

But 2022 was the year the European Union finally took action. In March, the bloc’s lawmakers agreed on new rules designed to release the grip Big Tech has on European consumers and to help homegrown internet companies compete with American giants for customers. The Digital Markets Act will obligate companies that run phone operating systems to offer “choice screens” so users have more control over which services they use. Technically, the DMA went into force in November, although it may not take full effect until March 2024. Proton is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, which is not an EU member. But Yen thinks this law will help European companies, like Proton, finally have a voice in Brussels. Europe’s momentum in rewriting the rules of the internet, however, is not all good for Proton, which has grown to 70 million accounts. The company is warily watching a wave of proposals in the UK and the EU that privacy advocates warn will threaten encryption, such as the UK’s Online Safety Bill and the EU’s proposals to combat child sexual abuse material. Yen spoke in October at WIRED’s business conference, WIRED Smarter. At the event, we talked about how he is thinking about the breakthroughs and concerns that are emerging out of Europe’s increasing focus on technology legislation. This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

The interview follows

Encryption Faces an Existential Threat in Europe

The CEO of Proton says new competition laws have finally given him a voice in Brussels, even as he fights the EU’s anti-encryption campaign.

www.wired.co.uk

 

[Freki123]

If you want to establish mass surveillance the keywords are always "child protection" and/or "terrorism".
If they would care about child protection (social) services would get decent funding.

 

[vtqhtr413]

Cops Hacked Thousands of Phones. Was It Legal?​

FOR A WEEK in October 2020, Christian Lödden’s potential clients wanted to talk about only one thing. Every person whom the German criminal defense lawyer spoke to had been using the encrypted phone network EncroChat and was worried their devices had been hacked, potentially exposing crimes they may have committed. “I had 20 meetings like this,” Lödden says. “Then I realized—oh my gosh—the flood is coming.” Months earlier, police across Europe, led by French and Dutch forces, revealed they had compromised the EncroChat network. Malware the police secretly planted into the encrypted system siphoned off more than 100 million messages, laying bare the inner workings of the criminal underground. People openly talked about drug deals, organized kidnappings, planned murders, and worse.

The hack, one of the largest ever conducted by police, was an intelligence gold mine—with hundreds arrested, homes raided, and thousands of kilograms of drugs seized. But it was just the beginning. Fast-forward two years, and thousands of EncroChat users across Europe—including in the UK, Germany, France, and the Netherlands—are in jail. However, a growing number of legal challenges are questioning the hacking operation. Lawyers claim investigations are flawed and that the hacked messages should not be used as evidence in court, saying rules around data-sharing were broken and the secrecy of the hacking means suspects haven’t had fair trials. Toward the end of 2022, a case in Germany was sent to Europe’s highest court. If successful, the challenge could potentially undermine the convictions of criminals around Europe. And experts say the fallout has implications for end-to-end encryption around the world. “Even bad people have rights in our jurisdictions because we are so proud of our rule of law,” Lödden says. “We’re not defending criminals or defending crimes. We are defending the rights of accused people.”

Full article

Cops Hacked Thousands of Phones. Was It Legal?

When police infiltrated the EncroChat phone system in 2020, they hit an intelligence gold mine. But subsequent legal challenges have spread across Europe.

www.wired.com

 

[Andrew3000]

“Child protection”, sure

 

[Stopspying]

The Open Rights Group (campaigns in the UK protect rights to privacy and free speech online) take on the plans to enforce encryption back doors.

Who’s checking on your chats in private online spaces?

A policy brief on the inclusion of private communications in scope of the Online Safety Bill and the impact on end-to-end encryption Chat monitoring of private messaging services has sneaked into the Online Safety Bill with very little public debate or Parliamentary Scrutiny. This policy brief...

www.openrightsgroup.org

This topic does not seem to be getting much debate in the UK, despite the implications if it becomes law. So many people seem to be unaware of it or ask 'what can we do?'!