European Court Upholds Encryption Rights, Warns against Backdoor Risks
Summary:
The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that creating encryption backdoors in secure messaging services like Telegram and Signal could compromise freedom of speech and expose ordinary users to hacking, identity theft, and random state surveillance. The court supported a Telegram user, Anton Podchasov, who had protested against government demands to decrypt user messages. It held that while encryption backdoors may assist law enforcement, they also jeopardize the rights of innocent users, violating the European Convention on Human Rights. The court emphasized alternate methods for monitoring encrypted communications that don't need encryption backdoors, such as accessing the communication devices directly.
The European Court of Human Rights has warned that creating a loophole in encrypted messaging services like Telegram and Signal could compromise freedom of speech while exposing ordinary users to hackers, identity theft and random state surveillance. On February 13, the court came out in support of Anton Podchasov, a Telegram user who challenged his government in 2018 when it insisted that Telegram decode messages sent via its encrypted "secret chat" feature. The court opined that offering codes for encryption may aid criminals to dodge the law but it would endanger everyday users and undermine their freedom of speech, hence infricting on the European Convention on Human Rights. It was stated that these codes would indiscriminately affect everyone, including innocuous individuals, and facilitate widespread and random monitoring of personal electronic exchanges.
The court saw encryption as a fundamental tool to secure and respect the privacy of electronic communications, which is pertinent for the enjoyment of other basic rights such as freedom of expression. They proposed alternative approaches to keep tabs on encrypted communications without the need for coded entrances, such as accessing the communication devices directly.
Back in 2018, Podchasov initiated a legal case against his own government, arguing that the demand for Telegram to disclose user messaging logs deemed suspicious of terrorism would push for the decoding of all user exchanges, thus violating European Human Rights norms. When Telegram declared their inability to comply without a loophole that weakens encryption for everyone, they were subsequently censored by the country in April 2018. Podchasov's case underwent multiple appeals, going to the supreme court before finally landing in the European Court of Human Rights.
Recently, the court determined that his country had contravened Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees "everyone the right to respect for his private and family life, his correspondence and his home". According to the Court, the mandate to decode encrypted communications is untenable in a democratic society and any laws that allow unchecked access to communications impinges on rights, exceeding any acceptable threshold of appreciation.
Published At
2/15/2024 6:43:24 AM
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