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French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron has become the latest high profile European politician to threaten U.S. tech companies over their use of end-to-end encryption, and for how digital\u00a0platforms enable the spread of terrorist propaganda online.<\/p>\n
Officially launching his presidential campaign yesterday with a five-point plan for combating terrorism,\u00a0Macron said<\/a> it is\u00a0\u201cno longer acceptable\u201d that companies say they have a contractual obligation to their users to protect their communications.<\/p>\n Opinion polls predict Macron\u00a0will be\u00a0one of two candidates to\u00a0reach the second round of the election next month.<\/p>\n \u201cDemocratic states must have access to content exchanged between terrorists on social media and instant messaging,\u201d he said, according to a\u00a0BBC<\/a> report.<\/p>\n We\u2019re reached out to Macron\u2019s press team with questions and will update this story with any response.<\/p>\n In the 40-minute speech discussing his approach to\u00a0counterterrorism, Macron describes\u00a0the Internet as\u00a0having become \u201can essential part of terrorism\u201d, and argues it therefore \u201cneeds to be an essential part of the fight against terrorism\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s why we need to have an open discussion with big internet companies: Google, Facebook, Apple, Twitter and others,\u201d he said, adding: \u201cMany terrorists went ahead after having been radicalized on social networks. They\u2019re exposed to islamist propaganda that manipulates them and leads them to violence. It\u2019s essential that big internet companies commit to remove this content immediately. This commitment should have an obligation of results. They can\u2019t argue that there\u2019s a technical \u00a0incompatibility, or that they value freedom or neutrality.<\/p>\n \u201c[Terrorist] organizations that threaten us take advantage of the possibilities of modern cryptography to hide their projects. They use strongly encrypted instant messengers to talk with each other and give orders. A good chunk of that internet traffic is encrypted and gets away from police forces. It\u2019s obviously a weakness and makes the fight against terrorism harder.<\/p>\n \u201cUntil now, big Internet companies have refused to give their encryption keys or access to this content, saying that they have told their clients that their communications are protected. This situation is no longer acceptable. You can be strongly in favor of protecting your privacy and your conversations \u2014 and it\u2019s my case. And it\u2019s not incompatible with new rules so that the police can prevent terrorist attacks efficiently, with all the safeguards we need.\u201d<\/p>\n If elected, Macron says\u00a0he will push for a common European initiative to co-operate on encryption and\u00a0push for big Internet companies to\u00a0\u201caccept a legal requisition system of their encrypted services similar to the existing one for telecom companies\u201d.<\/p>\n Governments, as long as they are democratic, should be able to access terrorist content on social networks and instant messaging services. We need to figure out the terms and the safeguards. But the goal is clear.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n \u201cGovernments, as long as they are democratic, should be able to access terrorist content on social networks and instant messaging services. We need to figure out the terms and the safeguards. But the goal is clear. If I\u2019m elected, I\u2019ll undertake this at the very beginning of my five-year mandate at the European level and within NATO,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n His\u00a0comments\u00a0come days after a terror attack in Stockholm<\/a>,\u00a0Sweden in which a truck was driven at speed into pedestrians, killing four people. And several weeks after a similar attack in London<\/a>, in which pedestrians and a policeman guarding parliament were killed by a lone attacker.<\/p>\n France has also suffered a spate of terror attacks in recent years, including in Paris in 2015<\/a>\u00a0and Nice in 2016<\/a>, as has Germany \u2014 including a truck attack\u00a0in Berlin last\u00a0December<\/a>.<\/p>\n Last summer<\/a> interior ministers in France and Germany also called for the European Commission to consider a law change to\u00a0enable\u00a0courts to demand Internet companies decrypt data to afford security agencies\u00a0access to messages.<\/p>\n And the UK passed just such a law at the end of last year<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 aka: the Investigatory Powers Act \u2014 which\u00a0includes powers for authorities\u00a0to limit or block the use of end-to-end\u00a0encryption. Although that legislation\u00a0hasn\u2019t stopped current UK Home Secretary, Amber Rudd,\u00a0piling very public political pressure<\/a> on tech companies last month after the\u00a0Westminster terror\u00a0attack \u2014 apparently also calling for them to stop using\u00a0end to end-to-end encryption.<\/p>\n \u201cWe need to make sure that organisations like WhatsApp, and there are plenty of others like that, don\u2019t provide a secret place for terrorists to communicate with each other,\u201d said Rudd last month.\u00a0<\/span>\u201cIt used to be that people would steam open envelopes or just listen in on phones when they wanted to find out what people were doing, legally, through warranty.\u00a0<\/span>But on this situation we need to make sure that our intelligence services have the ability to get into situations like encrypted WhatsApp.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Rudd\u2019s\u00a0criticism of end-to-end encryption was followed by a meeting with major tech firms<\/a>\u00a0in which the discussion apparently centered on how they could do more<\/a> to limit the spread of terrorist propaganda on their public platforms. (Something Germany has also been pushing for, including via\u00a0new legislation<\/a>.) So the pressure in the UK on\u00a0WhatsApp et al\u2019s use of e2e encryption appears to have evaporated at least for now \u2014 or at least publicly.<\/p>\n At the Europe-wide level, EU Member State\u00a0justice ministers remain\u00a0unclear on whether to push for a decrypt law<\/a>\u00a0according to the European Commission\u00a0\u2014 although the idea is being actively discussed. Another meeting of the justice ministers group is due to take place in\u00a0June. And while some interior ministers are clearly supportive of the notion of a decrypt law, the EC\u2019s digital minister is not.<\/p>\n The global nature\u00a0of technology and the inability of politicians in one jurisdiction to control access to software or algorithms developed elsewhere makes political attempts to outlaw encryption as futile\u00a0as they are historically\u00a0repetitious<\/a>. Though the frequency and speed with which politicians seeking\u00a0to sound tough on terrorism point the finger of blame at tech companies probably\u00a0boils down to\u00a0a calculation of what plays best\u00a0with domestic voters (and, in Macron\u2019s case, on the campaign trail).<\/p>\n After all, no politicians are talking about banning cars and trucks from cities despite a wave of terror attacks in which\u00a0lone attackers have repurposed vehicles as killing machines.<\/p>\n However the\u00a0exact nature of counterterrorism\u00a0discussions between commercial tech firms\u00a0and governments remains unknown, given they are held behind closed doors. Which is why closed source deployments of robust encryption still require users to trust the company\u00a0making the secure messaging claims, given there\u2019s no way to externally verify their\u00a0software does not contain government mandated backdoors. Open source software can provide the disinfectant for that doubt.<\/p>\n TechCrunch\u2019s Roman Dillet contributed to this report<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\n\n
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French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron has become the latest high profile European politician to threaten U.S. tech companies over their use of end-to-end encryption, and for how digital platforms enable the spread of terrorist propaganda online. Read More<\/a><\/p>\n\n<\/img><\/a>
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