The EU debates the future of encryption, two years after Australia’s controversial messaging law

MLex Market Insight

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4.9 • 9 Ratings

🗓️ 27 November 2020

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

End-to-end encryption in messaging services has been a boon for privacy. In fact, it’s hard to see a downside to the fact that you can send someone your banking details, or medical records or other personal information without having to worry about it falling into the wrong hands. Yet encryption hasn’t been kind to law-enforcement agencies, as criminals embrace secure channels of communication, sidestepping surveillance. Against a backdrop of growing concern over terrorism, some European national governments are now pushing to grant investigators access to encrypted messages, and the European Union appears set to consider regulatory change — despite mounting concerns over privacy. Meanwhile, Australia’s encryption laws are almost two years old, although to date police have left the strongest part of the measures untouched, raising questions about why the legislation was needed in the first place.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Here we are again. Welcome back to Emlex's weekly conversation covering the big issues in regulatory affairs. James Panicki with you. Welcome to the podcast wherever you may be listening. Now, end-to-end
0:22.1	encryption in messaging services has been a boon for privacy. It's hard to see the downside to the
0:28.2	fact that you can send someone your banking details or medical records or other personal
0:33.5	information without having to worry about it falling into the wrong hands. Yet
0:38.3	encryption hasn't been kind to law enforcement agencies. With phone taps quickly
0:43.5	becoming a thing of the past as criminals embrace new secure channels of
0:48.0	communication, police forces are left struggling, something that particularly
0:52.6	against the backdrop of terrorist attacks
0:55.1	has left law enforcement agencies clamouring for change. Today we're going to talk about moves
1:00.7	in the EU to address these grievances. We'll also point to an interesting policy link with
1:06.5	moves to force digital platforms to remove terrorist content.
1:15.8	Then we'll touch base with our correspondent in Australia to see how encryption legislation,
1:21.0	which has now been in place for almost two years, is playing out in that jurisdiction.
1:27.2	Joining us from Brussels are Matthew Newman, Emlex's chief correspondent covering data protection and privacy,
1:28.5	and Oreski Yaish, who reports for Emlex on national competition issues.
1:34.3	Matthew, let's start with you for an overview of this discussion.
1:38.6	What exactly is the EU planning here?
1:42.1	Does it, in fact, intend to ban end-to-end encryption?
1:46.1	The EU is in the middle of a debate
1:49.7	on security of communication and fighting crime and terrorism.
1:54.4	The short answer is, no, it's not going to be an imminent ban
1:59.0	of end-to-end encryption, but what I would say, it's more of a
	...

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