EU Member States address issues on encryption in criminal investigations

Recently, Italy, Latvia, Poland, Hungary and Croatia, have proposed a new legislation, which could facilitate police investigators to access the different entities’ encrypted information in order to make it easier to crack open encryption technology.

According to the Polish officials, “One of the most crucial aspects will be adopting new legislation that allows acquisition of data stored in EU countries in the cloud”.

European countries were asked by the Slovakian government (which holds the current presidency of the EU Council) to identify the way, in which their law enforcement authorities deal with technology preventing from the communication interception as long as they are not authorised to get the information.

Via a freedom of information request, twelve countries, amongst others Finland, Italy, Swedem or Poland, responded to the Dutch internet rights NGO Bits of Freedom, that they frequently encounter encrypted data while carrying out criminal investigations. The UK and Latvia indicated that it happens ‘almost always’.

Ultimately a dispute on prohibiting or creating backdoors in order to weaken encryption for digital and telecommunication services has raised among Germany and European Union.

Even though Germany has dismissed charges that the government is pushing companies to create encryption backdoors in their products, Angela Merkel has announced that investigators will pay more attention to tracing criminals who use the darknet and encryption, especially since the shooting in Munich in July.

So far however, Europol, ENISA and the Commission´s vice president Andrus Ansip oppose creating the backdoors weakening encryption.