‘Backdooring encryption without securing government servers is not just reckless, it’s an invitation to catastrophe,’ cybersecurity expert Andy Jenkinson said.
News Analysis
Encrypted messaging apps such as Signal, Telegram, and WhatsApp would be forced to provide a digital backdoor to enable police forces and security services to read secure messages, under plans announced in April by the European Commission.
Apart from potential concerns of government snooping, the crime-busting aims could backfire, according to one analyst, by providing criminals with an entry point to precious personal information.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in an April 1 statement, “We will strengthen Europol and give law enforcement up-to-date tools to fight crime.”
The commission said law enforcement needed “lawful access to data,” which means giving backdoor entry to encrypted apps and other tools that rely on end-to-end encryption.
Andy Jenkinson, a fellow at the Cyber Theory Institute, said opening backdoor encryption without securing government servers “is not just reckless, it’s an invitation to catastrophe.”
“The moral, legal, and security consequences of such actions will reverberate far beyond their intended targets,” he told The Epoch Times.
Jenkinson, who authored “Stuxnet to Sunburst: 20 Years of Digital Exploitation and Cyber Warfare,” said there were two main issues: first, that cybercriminals could engineer ways to exploit the backdoor to access encrypted apps, and second, they could intercept data as it was transferred to various government-run servers around the world, which he said are not secure.
Many chat apps—including WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, iMessage, and BrightChat—use end-to-end encryption, which makes information unreadable to anyone except the sender and recipient.
Durov Warns Against Backdoors
Telegram co-founder and CEO Pavel Durov was arrested in France in August 2024 and charged by the Paris prosecutor with a series of offenses, including “complicity in managing an online platform to allow illicit transactions by an organized group.”
Durov—who has denied any wrongdoing—was allowed to leave France in March and return to his home in Dubai, pending his trial.
The French government recently tried to introduce encryption backdoors.
Durov wrote in an April 21 post on social media platform X: “Last month, France nearly banned encryption. A law requiring messaging apps to implement a backdoor for police access to private messages was passed by the Senate. Luckily, it was shot down by the National Assembly. Yet 3 days ago the Paris Police Prefect advocated for it again.”
