250 scientists write letter against EU plans to undermine encryption – Computer – News

I don’t think it’s useful to talk about “the EU” wanting something or seeing something a certain way. It is not a monolithic whole. The EU consists of more than 450 million people with at least tens of millions of different interests and millions of opinions about what the goal is and how to achieve it.

In the EU there are people who care a lot about privacy and people who don’t care about privacy. There are people in the EU who deal in child abuse and people who want to do something about it. There are investigative organizations and privacy watchdogs in the EU. The EU has courts and parliaments. There are companies and trade unions in the EU. There are lobby clubs and consumer organizations in the EU. You and I are in that EU.

Blurring the playing field and the tension by calling all this “the EU” helps no one, least of all the group (to which I include myself) that is concerned about this movement. Just as I do not find it useful to say that “the Netherlands” is in favor of weakening encryption, while it was only the Dutch representation of the Council of Ministers in Brussels that is in favor of this: Minister Grapperhaus pleads with the European Union for a backdoor in encryption As if Bits of Freedom doesn’t exist, or Rob Coops, or Maurits van Baerle.

If you look at what is really happening and therefore look at the different groups that are sometimes diametrically opposed to each other, you can make a much better analysis and provide much more effective guidance and resistance.

You see that the Council of the EU (which represents the governments of the member states), and where each country sends its ministers to make decisions, is generally in favor of weakening encryption. This is probably because they have shorter lines of communication with national police organizations and have more insight into unpleasant things that are happening. Moreover, there will also be the old game that if you as a national government want to introduce something but you do not want to convince your own population of its usefulness, you then try to push it through in Brussels so that you can say at home: “We wanted it. neither, but it has to be done by Brussels.”

You see that the European Parliament, which includes our representatives who are directly elected by us as EU citizens, is generally much more critical of these types of weakenings. I already mentioned MEP Patrick Breyer, who has been committed to opposing it for years and he is certainly not the only one. It is not without reason that the European Parliament voted against.

Then there is the EU Court of Justice, which has already indicated in the past that the right to privacy that every EU citizen has (and which flows directly from the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights) counts more than just about everything, more than the wishes of governments, more important than the wishes of companies, more important than international treaties. If the European Commission comes up with an interpretation that is contrary to the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, they can annul it. They have done exactly that with the ruling on the Safe Harbor principle of data exchange with the US.

Between these three forces, the European Commission must come up with a proposal that is not only approved by the Council of the EU and the European Parliament, but also one that will be thrown out by the EU Court of Justice not a year later.

In short, know what is going on, who the players are, and you can steer much better towards the outcome you want.

[Reactie gewijzigd door Maurits van Baerle op 3 mei 2024 20:12]