Chat Control May Finally Be Dead: European Court Rules That Weakening Encryption Is Illegal
The EU Court ruled that “Backdoors may also be exploited by criminal networks and would seriously compromise the security of all users’ electronic communications. The Court takes note of the dangers of restricting encryption described by many experts in the field.” Any requirement to build in backdoors to encryption protocols for law enforcement agencies could also be taken advantage of by malicious actors.
The EU Court of Human Rights’ also builds on their acknowledgment that “mass surveillance does not appear to have contributed to the prevention of terrorist attacks, contrary to earlier assertions made by senior intelligence officials.”
As the EU Commision’s Chat Control Bill directly targets undermining secure end-to-end encryption, it now looks to be in trouble. In its current version, the Chat Control bill would require the scanning of content on your personal devices, including that which is sent via end-to-end encrypted messenger apps or encrypted email. At some point, providers would be required to either break this encryption to allow the scanning of content or scan content once it has been decrypted and is readable.
On February 13th, Europe received an early Valentine’s gift from the European Court of Human rights when they banned any laws that aims to weaken end-to-end encryption. This ruling is a major stumbling block for the EU Chat Control Bill, but does it really mean that Chat Control is dead? There are many reasons why Chat Control should never become law, we've collected the turn of events and steps you can take to help prevent this dangerous bill from ever being passed!
Knowing some of the fucks in the EU parliament it certainly won't stop them from trying. It is very reassuring to know that the courts are aware of what fuckery some of the politicians are trying to pull and are actively moving to prevent the abuse from happening.
I don't think the politicians who advocate for weakening of encryption see it as fuckery, but rather that they are "preventing terrorism", "stopping criminal networks" and, of course, "working to prevent child sex abuse". And so do the people who support them.
yeah, and they're all wrong
Right, right. Sure.
And I was born yesterday.
Those are the arguments they use. Damn few, if any, actually believe those arguments.
Do you mind sharing what you believe they think they're doing then?
The parliament has spoken against "chat control" as well AFAIK. The Commission, however, is probably still trying to find a way to eliminate privacy in whichever way they can.