Hier geht es direkt zum offenen Brief als .pdf
Am 1. April veröffentlichte die Europäische Kommission ihre neue Strategie für die innere Sicherheit, ProtectEU, in der sie ihre Pläne für die nächsten fünf Jahre darlegt. Dazu gehörte auch die Ankündigung, eine Technologie-Roadmap zur Verschlüsselung zu erstellen, die aufgrund der Pläne, Strafverfolgungsbehörden Zugang zu verschlüsselten Daten zu ermöglichen, mehrere Fragen aufgeworfen hat.
EDRi hat heute in einer Gruppe von 39 Organisationen und 43 Experten einen offenen Brief veröffentlicht, in dem sie ihre Besorgnis zum Ausdruck bringen und fordern, dass Wissenschaftler, unabhängige Experten, Rechtsanwälte für Technik und Menschenrechte sowie Akteure der Zivilgesellschaft, die sich auf diese Themen spezialisiert haben, einen Platz am Tisch der Technologie-Roadmap bekommen, um eine wissenschaftlich fundierte Herangehensweise an die Verschlüsselung zu gewährleisten.
Monday 5 May, 2025
Academics, technologists and other experts call for a key role in EU Technology Roadmap on encryption
Dear Ms. Henna Virkkunen, Executive Vice-President for Tech Sovereignty, Security and
Democracy,
The undersigned stakeholders are civil society organisations, scientists, researchers and
other experts with expertise in human rights and technology.
On 1 April, the European Commission published its new Internal Security Strategy,
ProtectEU, setting out its plans for the next five years with the aim of coordinating a
European response to security threats. Providing safety, protection and justice to all
people and communities in Europe is an important part of the EU’s mission. It requires
an evidence-based and holistic approach by all institutions to address societal problems
at the root and to deliver adequate structural solutions.
From this perspective, we are concerned that the foreseen framework for access to
data by law enforcement authorities risks undermining the exercise of
fundamental rights and our collective cybersecurity. In particular, the “preparation
of a Technology Roadmap on encryption, to identify and assess technological solutions
that would enable law enforcement authorities to access encrypted data in a lawful
manner” raises several questions.
From past and recent attempts at EU level, we know that ‘silver bullet’ technological
‘solutions’ are not only ineffective, but result in harmful consequences, including for
those who most need protection. There is a wide scientific consensus about the
technical impossibility to give law enforcement exceptional access to communications
that are end-to-end encrypted without creating vulnerabilities that malicious actors and
repressive governments can exploit. Experts found that even the latest technologies like
client-side scanning, which are pitched as secure and privacy-preserving, are in fact
privacy invasive, enable bulk surveillance and increase the risks of security breaches.
Encryption is a vitally important tool for people’s rights and freedoms, as well as for the
development of vibrant and secure communities, civil society, public administrations
and industry. In face of a complex threat landscape and the increased digitalisation of
every aspect of our lives, encryption is not a luxury but a sine qua non condition for our
ability to navigate safely online.
Rather than investing more resources and time in systems that are demonstrably
causing harm, we firmly believe that all stakeholders need to work together to find
long-term solutions (both technical and non-technical) to complex societal issues,
which are based on scientific evidence, and are respectful of all fundamental
rights.
As the European Commission has set its intention to “safeguard cybersecurity and
fundamental rights” while carrying out this exploratory work, we would like to support
the Commission in meeting this objective and therefore kindly request the
following:
- A meeting between you and representatives of signatories of this letter to
further discuss our position and contributions; - Seats at the Technology Roadmap table for academics, independent
technologists, tech and human rights lawyers and civil society actors
specialising in these issues to ensure that we can meaningfully participate.
We further believe that we would be well-positioned to provide expert technical
briefings to you, your cabinet and services, and would be delighted to make ourselves
available for this purpose.
Sincerely,
Civil society organisations specialising in technology and/or digital rights:
- Access Now (EU/International)
- ACT | The App Association
- ANSOL – Associação Nacional para o Software Livre (Portugal)
- Asociația pentru Tehnologie și Internet (ApTI) (Romania)
- Bangladesh NGOs Network for Radio and Communication (BNNRC)
- Big Brother Watch (United Kingdom)
- Bits of Freedom (Netherlands)
- Chaos Computer Club (Germany)
- Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) (Belgium)
- Cyprus Computer Society (CCS)
- D64 – Center for Digital Progress (Germany)
- Danes je nov dan, Inštitut za druga vprašanja (DJND) (Slovenia)
- Dataföreningen i Sverige (Sweden)
- Dataföreningen Väst (Swedish Computer Association west)
- Defend Democracy (Netherlands/Belgium)
- Deutscher Anwaltverein (DAV) (Germany)
- Digital Rights Ireland
- Digitale Gesellschaft e.V. (Germany)
- Državljan D / Citizen D (Slovenia)
- Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)
- Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) (US)
- European Digital Rights (EDRi)
- Homo Digitalis (Greece)
- Initiative für Netzfreiheit. (Netzfreiheit / IfNf) (Austria)
- Internet Society (US/International)
- ISOC India Hyderabad Chapter
- ISOC India Hyderabad Chapter (ISOC Hyderabad)
- IT-Pol (Denmark)
- JCA-NET (Japan)
- Panoptykon Foundation (Poland)
- Politiscope (Croatia)
- Privacy First (Netherlands)
- Privacy International
- SHARE Foundation (Serbia)
- Slovenian Society INFORMATIKA (SSI)
- Statewatch (United Kingdom)
- The Association for Information Technology and Communications of Romania
(ATIC) - The Centre for Democracy & Technology Europe (CDT Europe)
- Xnet, Institute for Democratic Digitalisation (Spain)
Individual signatories specialising in technology and/or digital rights: - Assist. Prof. Giovanni Apruzzese, University of Liechtenstein
- Assist. Prof. Lili Nemec Zlatolas, University of Maribor
- Associate Prof. Dr. Carsten Baum, Technical University of Denmark
- Aureli Gómez i Vidal, critical internet services engineer
- Emeritus Professor Douwe Korff, London Metropolitan University
- Dr Dan Bogdanov, Estonian Academy of Sciences
- Dr. David Galadi-Enriquez, University of Cordova
- Dr. Eyal Ronen, Tel Aviv University
- Dr. Jordi Cortit, Clarivate
- Dr. Juanjo Llórente Albert, Universidad Popular Valencia
- Dr. María Iglesias Caballero, National Institute of Health Carlos III
- Dr. Stephen Farrell, Trinity College Dublin
- Eng. Jorge Pinto, Independent Technologist
- Filippos Frantzolas Msc, Hellenic Professionals Informatics Society (HePIS)
- Mr. Henrique California Mendes, application security engineer
- Matthias Pfau, co-founder of Tuta.com and cryptography expert
- Prof. Anja Lehmann, Hasso-Plattner-Institute, University of Potsdam
- Prof. Aurélien Francillon, EURECOM
- Prof. Bart Preneel, University of Leuven
- Prof. Carmela Troncoso, MPI-SP & EPFL
- Prof. Diego F. Aranha, Aarhus University
- Prof. Dr. Daniel Loebenberger, Sprecher Fachbereich Sicherheit der Gesellschaft
für Informatik e.V. - Prof. dr. Jaap-Henk Hoepman, Radboud University / Karlstad University
- Prof. Dr. René Mayrhofer, Johannes Kepler University Linz
- Prof. Dr. Simone Fischer-Hübner, Karlstad University & Chalmers University of
Technology - Prof. Dr. Tanja Lange, Eindhoven University of Technology
- Prof. Ian Goldberg, University of Waterloo
- Prof. Keith Martin, Royal Holloway, University of London
- Prof. Kenneth G. Paterson, ETH Zurich
- Prof. Kimmo Halunen, University of Oulu
- Prof. Levente Buttyán, Budapest University of Technology and Economics (Head
of the Laboratory of Cryptography and System Security)) - Prof. Manuel Barbosa, Universidade do Porto (FCUP)
- Prof. Marko Hölbl, University of Maribor
- Prof. Martin Albrecht, King’s College London
- Prof. Panos Papadimitratos, KTH Royal Institute of Technology
- Prof. Simona Levi, Director of Postdegree in Tecnopolitics and Rights in the Digital
Era at Universitat de Barcelona - Prof. Srdjan Čapkun, ETH Zurich
- Prof. Stefano Calzavara, Università Ca‘ Foscari Venezia
- Prof. Vaclav Matyas, Masaryk University
- Prof. Vasile Balatac, National University of Political Studies and Public
Administration – SNSPA - Simone Aonzo, PhD, EURECOM
- Univ.-Prof. Dr. Matteo Maffei, TU Wien
- Yigit Aydinalp, University of Sheffield