Bratislava, 08/07/2016 (Agence Europe) - Justice Ministers and representatives held a discussion on Friday 8 July on the theme of encryption. This process is used on social media to protect the communications of their users from potential intrusion (including that from the security and law enforcement agencies). The public authorities, however, would like to circumvent this framework in their fight against terrorism. Without providing any guidance on the matter, the Slovak Minister for Justice, Lucia Zitnanska, simply explained at the end of the final conference that the ministers would be encouraged to discuss this sensitive subject and asserted that “the states must have instruments” in this context because they could not just count on the good will of the major web companies to decrypt these communications alone. She also said that the difficulty regarding the subject involved striking the right balance between individual freedoms and carrying out the work of the law enforcement agencies.
This discussion was part of a broader debate on the fight against cybercrime. In this context, Commissioner Vera Jourova explained that the measures could be the subject of an agreement with the companies and not have to be imposed upon them. She highlighted the example of the fight against hate speech on the Internet and the cooperation sought with the “big five” such as Yahoo and Facebook for withdrawing violent content. The Commissioner also called on these companies to fully apply the European rules on the matter. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)