European Commission Revives Push for Encryption Backdoors in ProtectEU Strategy

The European Commission has far too much power, and answers far too little to the populace. In reality, they want to be dictators.

If you don't know, the unfortunate way thf EU is structured, the Parliament cannot initiate legislation. They can only vote on whatever the Commission puts in front of them.

If the Parliament votes "wrong", the Commission just repackages the idea in a new bill, pulls a couple of dirty tricks, and tried again. They only have to succeed once. See ChatControl for a prime example.

So the EU will eventually require backdoors in encryption. It's only a question of how many tries it takes...

And, of course, no thought is given to the implications this could have in conjunction with the next Orban. Europe is aligning against Russia as a threat, while at the same time shooting itself in the foot by disabling basic rights like privacy with absolutely no memory of how much more basic lack of privacy (enabled by Facebook) was leveraged with relatively simple tools (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook–Cambridge_Analytica_d...) to help Brexit happen (effectively breaking Europe apart).

This quote from Apocalypto stuck with me "A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within."

With all the current concerns about rogue and mis-aligned AI, and about how we've made essentially zero progress on making sure that AI is safe and trustworthy, NOW you want to put backdoors in encryption algorithms? We should be doing everything we possibly can to make our systems more secure, not less.

This type of policy was terrible when they first thought of it. Now it's outright negligent and dangerous.

Meanwhile the latest gen ai agents are able to crack everything not nailed down. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49494301

Leaving holes might not be the best plan atm

Is the actual text of the workplan somewhere? The linked article refers to the text

more effective tools for law enforcement

in the press release and then infers or implies that this means more encryption backdoors, but I could not find that in an actual EU text?

(Edit: I'm not doubting that they want to make backdoors mandatory, I'd just like to see the actual text.)

Oh man I will never let them read my private comms. So what are they going to do to me? I’m afraid that I, as a good person and father, am going to be punished for not letting them read my private messages. I’m afraid for my future in the EU.

Stuff like that make people want to leave EU, not some "enemy propaganda" which is real unfortunate in current times.

This is from April 2025.

Also, whether the plan pushes for backdoors is debatable since those are not actually mentioned.

Google "security despite encryption" etc. It is some good rhetorical manipulation a'la EU over again.

Signal, Apple iMessage, and WhatsApp have to announce at some point that they will simply stop providing services to any country/region that insists on breaking E2EE. All you'll be left with is unencrypted RCS.

It's a bit of a 'nuclear option', but at the end of the day, once one jurisdiction forces them to break the math, every other one will as well.

IMHO, it's the only way to force the proponent(s) of these proposal(s) to see the folly of their ways (and it's no guarantee that they will).

Backdoor is a weakness of design by definition. How it can possibly protect EU?

Let them learn their lesson. As soon as it comes together it will be taken over by the first AI to crack it and then they will be pwned and have to learn the hard way. No child, spoiled, stupid or otherwise will learn hard lessons without experiencing pain.

So "Think of the children" did not work and now they go about it with "Fear the Russians" or "Fear the Chinese" or whatever boogieman they're looking at creating.

From the article: "The new EU strategy promises that cybersecurity and fundamental rights will be protected as a future encryption backdoor is implemented." - so a revival of "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" mantra?

The question that I have: what do they fear so much they spend so much time and effort trying to weaken or outright ban end-to-end encryption for private communications?

This is from 2025. I don't know why someone has seen fit to repost it again in 2026.... I'm guessing they didn't look at the date.

And lots of people here are spouting FUD.

In the ensuing period, the EU took expert advice later in 2025, and as they say in an update a few months later in June 2025[1]:

    The High-Level Group recommended taking a cautious approach to designing solutions for lawful access to systems, whereby industry should not be asked to integrate systems that are likely to weaken encryption in a generalised or systemic way for all users of a service. Lawful access to data must remain targeted and limited to specific communications on a case-by-case basis.

   As a general rule, any solutions should be implemented based on clear standards that are developed with input from all stakeholders, including industry representatives, data protection, privacy and cybersecurity experts, and law enforcement practitioners. However, caution is warranted when dealing with encryption, as underlined by the High-Level Group.

It is instead quite clear from the above that the experts are on "our" side AND the EU are listening to them.

Instead, all these publications are just a reflection of a democratic process of discussing modern threats. The documents clearly mention "terrorism, organised crime, online fraud, drug trafficking, child sexual abuse, online sexual extortion, ransomware".

So it is only fair and reasonable that politicians should be discussing ways to counter these threats. And quite honestly they would not be doing their job if someone did not MENTION "encryption" and ask "the question" to the experts and other stakeholders.

The fact they are DISCUSSING "encryption" does not automatically mean they want to backdoor it.

I know it is alien to people in the US under the present administration, but this is how proper politics works. You openly discuss issues of the day, you seek opinions from stakeholders and experts, rinse and repeat until you make a decision (or not). The present US administration could do with learning a thing or two. ;)

People here need to rein in the FUD.

[1] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A...

This is in a desperate need of a (2025) flag.

The lobbyists are working hard again to abuse every EU citizen. This is quite typical of the fake commission here - not voted in by the people, not working for the people. An alien organisation that constantly wants to expand the EU and increase taxes to self-finance itself.

(2025)

Politicians and the interests around them just don't quit.

I came from the oldschool cypherpunk cryptogeeks when it meant secure comms and not shitcoin.

There was a subset of us who thought that encryption wasn't the final goal, but steganography was needed to HIDE the encrypted comms. Else simple encryption could be attacked legally, or with a crowbar.

And with every bloody week a large government is "let's backdoor encryption haha" its high time to really develop stego that can overlay on top of text, pictures, audio, and video. Only then can they play fuck-fuck games about spying on our comms, and they'll see innocuous banter - but its really stego'd comms overlay.

Only a fascist like totalitarian government would keep pushing for more and control and les freedoms.

Their biggest ploy was they convicted people 1984 was a description of a communist dictatorship, and not an execution manual for European democracies on how to strengthen their grips.

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These threads are amusing.

In an earlier one about Iceland and EU, people criticizing EU were downvoted, called russian bots or far-right. I don't expect much difference here.

Chat control and ProtectEU are certainly not the last totalitarian measures EU will invent, there will be more. And I find it interesting that people still defend EU without any hesitation.

Now I think the initial trade union was great and a necessary counter weight when competing with larger economies and countries. But it rather quickly evolving into something that is less concerned about the citizens, and more about staying in power.