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   Experts "deeply concerned" by the EU plan to weaken encryption   
      
   Date:   
   Tue, 27 May 2025 16:21:35 +0000   
      
   Description:   
   ProtectEU keeps raising concerns among tech experts as the Global Encryption   
   Alliance now urges the European Commission to protect strong encryption.   
      
   FULL STORY   
      
   The EU plan to create a legal backdoor into encrypted communications keeps   
   raising concerns.    
      
   This time, 89 signatories coming from the tech industry  including civil   
   society organizations, some of the best VPN and email providers, and   
   cybersecurity experts  are warning against the privacy and security dangers    
   of the Technology Roadmap on encryption included in the ProtectEU strategy.    
      
   In a joint letter published on Monday, May 26, 2025, experts are now urging   
   the European Commission to "reframe its approach" and protect strong   
   encryption practices.   
      
   The need for strong encryption    
      
   "While we recognize the importance of elevating security efforts during   
   moments of increased geopolitical instability, we are concerned by the    
   framing of the technology roadmap," experts wrote.    
      
    Encryption , the scrambling of data into an unreadable form to prevent   
   unwanted access, is the backbone of how services like Signal, WhatsApp, and   
   Proton Mail work. Yet, law enforcement has long argued that this technology    
   is an obstacle to criminal investigations.    
      
   As cyberattack incidents keep rising worldwide, though, even government   
   bodies, like the FBI and CISA in the US, have started to encourage citizens    
   to swicth to end-to-end encrypted services to fight back these threats.    
      
   The European Commission itself previously acknowledged encryption as needed    
   to protect the integrity of cyberspace, too.    
      
   This is why, for the signatories, who include the likes of Proton, Surfshark    
   , Tuta Mail , Mozilla, and Element, alongside leading cryptographers and   
   digital rights groups, this technology remains a "key cybersecurity tool"    
   that cannot be compromised.    
      
   "Undermining encryption weakens the very foundation of secure communications   
   and systems, leaving individuals, businesses, and public institutions more   
   vulnerable to attacks," they wrote.   
      
   ProtectEU comes as the first step in the EU Commission's plan to bolster the   
   security of the European bloc in the years to come. While we don't know much   
   at the time of writing, we do know the strategy includes finding a technical   
   way to create encryption backdoors into software. That's exactly what most   
   worries the tech benches.    
      
   They wrote: "We are deeply concerned by the Commissions continued focus on   
   identifying ways to weaken or circumvent encryption. This undermines its own   
   security objectives under the ProtectEU strategy."    
      
   The European Commission has already tried to weaken encryption with its   
   proposal to scan all citizens' communications to halt the spread of child   
   sexual material, in fact. Deemed by critics as Chat Control , the bill has   
   been failing to attract the needed majority since 2022.    
      
   Along the way, the European Court of Human Rights even ruled " illegal break   
   encryption ," a hard blow for the supporters of client-side scanning   
   technologies to monitor encrypted communications. Did you know? (Image    
   credit: Vlad Yushinov/via Getty Images) While messaging apps and email   
   providers are set to be the main target of lawmakers,  an EU expert group   
   explicitly recently referred to VPN services as "key challenges" to the   
   investigative work of law enforcement agencies for the very first time,   
   alongside encrypted devices, apps, and new communications operators.    
      
   Now, experts believe that what lawmakers aim to do under the ProtectEU   
   strategy will lead to the same security, human rights, and accountability   
   issues.    
      
   They then urge to reframe the Technology Roadmap on Encryption by taking into   
   consideration also the industry concerns, not only those of law enforcement.    
      
   "Any future roadmap that aspires to be credible and balanced must consider    
   the feasibility of any potential technological capabilities and their   
   societal, technical, and legal impact," they conclude.    
      
   This is the second time digital rights and tech experts have gotten together   
   to call on the European Commission not to undermine encryption with the new   
   ProtectEU plan since April 1, 2025, the day the plan was first unveiled. Also   
   on that occasion, experts urged lawmakers to make them an active part of the   
   process.    
      
   ======================================================================   
   Link to news story:   
   https://www.techradar.com/computing/cyber-security/experts-deeply-concerned-by   
   -the-eu-plan-to-weaken-encryption   
      
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