Five Eyes, the anglophone intelligence alliance comprising Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States, has come out against the use of end-to-end encryption and asked technology firms to install backdoor access to encrypted communications.
After a two-day summit in London, the ministers from the member countries said the efforts of law enforcement agencies to investigate and prosecute the most serious crimes would be “hampered” if the industry carries out plans to implement end-to-end encryption, “without the necessary safeguards”.
However, concerns over the security issues that may arise if end-to-end encryption is scrapped seem to widely shared.
Calls to weaken encryption, or to place backdoors in are periodically made by ill-informed politicians. However. no matter how hotly this is debated, it can\’t change the maths behind encryption, which will either work or not. Weakening encryption will do more harm than good, as it will leave all communication vulnerable and allow bad actors to compromise legitimate traffic.