As reported by TechDirt, a new EU “Draft Council Resolution on Encryption” has come out as the EU Council of Ministers continues to drift dangerously towards banning end-to-end encryption. The organisation says they just want “lawful access” to encrypted content, but there are fears that any such backdoor would effectively remove the protections of end-to-end encryption:
The European Union fully supports the development, implementation, and use of strong encryption. Encryption is a necessary means of protecting fundamental rights and the digital security of governments, industry, and society. At the same time, the European Union needs to ensure the ability of competent authorities in the area of security and criminal justice, e.g. law enforcement and judicial authorities, to exercise their lawful powers, both online and offline.
Governments have always had an odd relationship with encryption at the expense of their own reputation. We have heard of politicians wanting to create backdoors in encryption and now we hear hints that they are trying to ban it altogether, which would be ludicrous.
All of this shows that the government either does not fully understand the concept of security and privacy or that they are holding their hands up simply stating that they are at a dead-end when it comes to investigating crime. The old fashioned police tactics cannot decrypt encrypted messages very easily, putting many cases on hold, and no doubt law enforcement is worrying about WhatsApp introducing new disappearing messages also. However, putting the internet in jeopardy by demanding the relaxation of encryption is not the answer.
Furthermore, if these rules were ever actually pushed out, the normal user would just move to other messaging platforms which may even be more privacy-focused and deeper underground.