European Parliament wants protection against backdoors in encryption

The European Parliament has provided the proposal for the new ePrivacy Directive with a number of amendments to ensure that communications are protected. For example, the European Parliament wants to make the use of end-to-end encryption mandatory and prohibit backdoors.

The LIBE committee of the European Parliament submitted the proposal in question last week. It mentions a few amendments that should lead to better protection of communications. For example, Amendment 116 states that providers of electronic communications services must ensure measures against unauthorized access to communications. One possible measure is end-to-end encryption. In addition, the amendment describes a ban on decrypting, reverse engineering, or monitoring encrypted communications.

A third requirement is that Member States do not impose an obligation on providers of communication services that has the effect of weakening the security and encryption of their networks or services. A lawyer previously explained to Bloomberg that the LIBE document can have a lot of influence, because it establishes the negotiating position of the European Parliament. The Council will later come up with its own proposal, which will probably take a more moderate stance. He explains to the news agency that the position of the European Parliament corresponds to that of the Article 29 working group, in which all EU privacy watchdogs are united.

The proposal also calls for better protection against Wi-Fi and Bluetooth tracking, something the working group had previously expressed concerns about. The regulation in question is the ePrivacy Regulation, which introduces a new set of rules at European level. The rules regarding browser settings that should replace cookie walls are also part of the law. The regulation should replace the current ePrivacy Directive to bring the rules into line with the General Data Protection Regulation, which will come into effect in 2018.