encryption
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Why weak encryption is everybody’s problem
Representatives of the UK Home Department, US Attorney General, US Homeland Security and Australian Home Affairs have joined forces to issue an open letter to Mark Zuckerberg. In their letter of 4 October, they urge Facebook to halt plans for end-to-end (aka strong) encryption across Facebook’s messaging platforms, unless such plans include “a means for […]
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High time: Policy makers increasingly embrace encryption
Encryption is of critical importance to our democracy and rule of law. Nevertheless, politicians frequently advocate for weakening this technology. Slowly but surely, however, policy makers seem to start embracing it.
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The European Commission struggles to find a position on encryption
On 18 October, the European Commission adopted some form of position on encryption, inexplicably embedded in its “anti-terrorism package”. Home affairs activity in relation to encryption is horizontal (covering all illegal activity) and not specifically related to terrorism. However, the Commission chose to include this topic in its anti-terrorism package. The decision to publish the […]
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Privacy Camp 2018: Speech, settings and [in]security by design
Join us for the 6th annual Privacy Camp! Privacy Camp will take place on 23 January 2018 in Brussels, Belgium, just before the start of the CPDP conference. Privacy Camp brings together civil society, policy-makers and academia to discuss existing and looming problems for human rights in the digital environment. In the face of a […]
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EU’s plans on encryption: What is needed?
On 18 October 2017, the European Commission is expected to publish a Communication on counter-terrorism, which will include some lines on encryption. What is encryption? Why is it important? When we send an encrypted message (or store an encrypted document), no one else but the intended recipient can read it using a unique key. So […]
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Position Paper: Encryption workarounds and human rights
On 12 September, EDRi published the position paper “Encryption Workarounds: a digital rights perspective”. It was published in response to the European Commission’s expert consultation exercise around the Encryption Workarounds paper by Orin Kerr and Bruce Schneier.
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Dutch digital investigation: Pushing the boundaries of legality
The Dutch court is currently considering the case against Naoufal F, in which the police made use of several advanced digital investigation methods that challenge the boundaries of the law. A key issue in the case is the way in which the police gained access to and analysed the secure communication of suspects. Inez Weski, […]
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Secret documents reveal: BND attacked Tor and advises not to use it
The German spy agency BND developed a system to monitor the anonymity network Tor and warned federal agencies that its anonymity is “ineffective”. This is what emerges from a series of secret documents published by the German Netzpolitik blog. The spies handed a prototype of this technology over to the US National Security Agency (NSA), […]
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Commission Report on child protection online lacks facts and evidence
In December 2016, the European Commission issued two reports on the implementation of the Directive on combating the sexual abuse and sexual exploitation of children and child pornography (Child Exploitation Directive, 2011/92/EU): a general report and a specific report about Article 25 of the Directive, which covers removal and blocking of child abuse, child exploitation and child […]
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Are we on the right track for a strong e-Privacy Regulation?
European legislation protecting your personal data (the General Data Protection Regulation and Law Enforcement Directive on Data Protection) was updated in 2016, but the battle to keep your personal data safe is not over yet. The European Union is revising its legislation on data protection, privacy and confidentiality of communications in the digital environment: the e-Privacy […]
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Internet clampdown – convenient distraction from political turmoil?
There was unforeseen result in the United Kingdom general election. The Conservative Party was expected to increase their majority in government. However, it failed to achieve a majority and was forced to seek an alliance with the controversial Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) in order to form a government.
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UK government pushes for companies to weaken encryption
The terrorist attack in Manchester on 22 May has led to a relaunch of the encryption debate in the UK. In December 2016, the UK parliament passed the Investigatory Powers Act. This wide-ranging surveillance law gives government ministers the power to issue Technical Capability Notices (TCNs), which can force companies to modify their products.These powers could […]
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