Security News > 2024 > February > European Court of Human Rights declares backdoored encryption is illegal

The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that laws requiring crippled encryption and extensive data retention violate the European Convention on Human Rights - a decision that may derail European data surveillance legislation known as Chat Control.

The Court issued a decision on Tuesday stating that "The contested legislation providing for the retention of all internet communications of all users, the security services' direct access to the data stored without adequate safeguards against abuse and the requirement to decrypt encrypted communications, as applied to end-to-end encrypted communications, cannot be regarded as necessary in a democratic society."

The Court concluded that the Russian law requiring Telegram "To decrypt end-to-end encrypted communications risks amounting to a requirement that providers of such services weaken the encryption mechanism for all users." As such, the Court considers that requirement disproportionate to legitimate law enforcement goals.

Chat Control is shorthand for European data surveillance legislation that would require internet service providers to scan digital communications for illegal content - specifically child sexual abuse material and potentially terrorism-related information.

Doing so would necessarily entail weakening the encryption that keeps communication private.

"It would destroy the protection of everyone instead of investigating suspects. EU governments will now have no choice but to remove the destruction of secure encryption from their position on this proposal - as well as the indiscriminate surveillance of private communications of the entire population!" .

News URL

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/15/echr_backdoor_encryption/