Spain pushing to ban encryption and provides traceability. private messagesphotos and videos of hundreds of millions of citizens European Union (EU). That comes with a document leaking to Wired magazine that reveals the behind-the-scenes about a controversial law that partners in Europe try to stop the spread in the US. Internet related to illegal content aspect child sexual abuse.
Legislation you are working on Brussels It aims to enable large technology companies such as Google, Aim anyone Microsoft Scan everything circulating on their platform to look for illegality. In practice, this can kill the encryption protecting communication in applications such as: What’s up, Telegram anyone signal. The offer is open to technologists, lawyers and privacymeasure progresses.
The document leaked to Wired is about an internal survey. Council of Europe asks the opinion of about twenty members of the community club. Of all the positions, Spain’s is the most radical. In the text reviewed by EL PERIÓDICO from the Prensa Ibérica group, Spanish officials said, “The ideal, in our view, would be to legally prevent EU-based service providers from implementing end-to-end encryption.”
Speeding up the work of the police
This type of encryption used by most of the main instant messaging apps allows only the sender and receiver to read a message, no one else. Encryption prevents your communications from being intercepted by scammers, but it also makes it harder for the police to search for illegal content, such as: child pornography.
The law under construction aims to eliminate messages at this layer. protection in order to expedite the capture of illegal content. Thus, tech companies may have to scan their users’ messages, photos, and videos with police-approved software. These files will then be compared to the databases. data government agencies that host child abuse materials to detect matches.
“Police officials must have the necessary tools to continue to meet their legal obligations. criminals transferred to the virtual world”, says the Spanish position. Spanish Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaskahas referred to encrypted communication as a “threat” more than once.
Complaints from civil society
However, there are many non-governmental organizations that state that this law will not violate the privacy rights of citizens and that its implementation will not be beneficial in the fight against sexual abuse against children. “The technology doesn’t work well. And launching a system with ‘spies in your pockets’ is absolutely wrong, even when it’s done in the name of protecting children,” the Electronic Frontier Foundation said in a statement. More than 118 European NGOs signed a letter opposing this brutal measure.
A leaked internal survey reveals strong support among EU countries for the controversial law. Of the 20 countries surveyed, 15 welcome scanning encrypted private communications for illegal content.