The EU’s interior ministers met in Stockholm on 26 January for an informal meeting to discuss organised crime and its use of digital services.
At this meeting, the Swedish minister of justice Gunnar Strömmer indicated that support had been found among ministers to move forward on a new European framework “on access to communications data”. “We will use this to continue the work”, he said.
The minister did not specifically mention legislation on encryption, but that is what it comes down to, said German Greens MEP Patrick Breyer, who, in a statement, called on Member States not to take this on.
The ministers discussed, among other things, how to have more electronic evidence available, but also how to have better access to “communication data”, according to a discussion note submitted to them.
“Digital services are increasingly used by criminals to commit crimes such as child sexual abuse, online rape, fraud, ransomware attacks or attacks on critical infrastructure”, writes the Swedish Presidency of the EU Council.
And criminals can commit “crimes also facilitated by communications protected by encrypting”.
“Judicial and law enforcement agencies also face a number of difficulties in accessing relevant data efficiently. And it is about adopting effective approaches to encrypted communication”, the note continues.
“The truth is that governments have never had such extensive and complete access to our private lives as they do today in the digital world. With their plans to break secure encryption, EU governments are willing to sacrifice the overall security of our private communications to satisfy their short-term surveillance needs”, the German MEP reacted.
Link to the note: https://aeur.eu/f/53q (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)