The hopes of the authorities about the back doors of encryption technologies are falling apart in the European Union.
Backdoors to encryption technologies have been wanted for the authorities. Adobe Stock / AOP
The Court of Human Rights of the European Union (ECHR) has decided that making a back door to encryption technologies for public authorities violates human rights.
Ars Technica according to the policy may become an obstacle to the legislation planned by the EU Commission, which would oblige e-mail and messaging services to offer investigating authorities a way to decrypt messages.
Police organizations and intelligence agencies have been trying to get backdoors that break data encryption in both the EU and the US for years.
Privacy activists and data security experts, on the other hand, have warned of the data security and privacy risk posed by backdoors, because criminals can also find out how the door is used.
According to Echr, the decision was influenced by the fact that the intelligence authority in Russia began to demand Telegram to hand over users’ encrypted messages “in order to combat terrorism-related activities”. A Russian Telegram user complained that the Authority’s demand violates his right to the confidentiality of communications and the protection of his private life.
Telegram refused to release the information of six users suspected of terrorism. According to Telegram, it would have been technically impossible to provide the authorities with an encryption key that would only be related to the messages of a certain user.
As a result, Telegram was fined and the service was even ordered to be blocked in Russia, which users complained about. The services seem to be still in use in the country.
At the EU level, the complaint of a concerned user eventually reached the Human Rights Court.
Echr sided with Telegram on the issue, believing its argument that providing the decryption of messages that Russian authorities want would lead to changes in the privacy of all Telegram users.