US tech giants face fight in Europe over encrypted data

Silicon Valley’s battle over encryption is heading to Europe.

In the United States, the FBI’s demands that Apple help “unlock” an iPhone used by a mass killer in California opened a heated debate on privacy. After recent attacks on the Continent, like the bombings in Brusselslast week and the wave of violence in Paris last November, governments across the European Union are increasingly pushing for greater access to people’s digital lives, The New York Times reported.

This week, French lawmakers are expected to debate proposals to toughen laws, giving intelligence services greater power to get access to personal data.

The battle has pitted Europe’s fears about the potential for further attacks against concerns from Apple and other American technology giants like Google and Facebook that weakening encryption technologies may create so-called back doors to people’s digital information that could be misused by European law enforcement officials, or even intelligence agencies of unfriendly countries.

The recent attacks have pushed many Europeans to favor greater powers for law enforcement over privacy. But opponents say such measures should not undermine the region’s tough data protection rules that enshrine privacy on par with other rights like freedom of
expression.

This balance between national security and privacy has put major countries in the region on opposite sides of the debate, with Germany and the Netherlands dismissing encryption laws being considered by Britain and France.

“Fundamental rights are just that, fundamental,” said Nico van Eijk, a data protection expert at the University of Amsterdam. “Of course, there are exceptions for national security reasons. But governments have to be pragmatic.”

That pragmatism has led to a series of new proposals across Europe that, if approved, would give national intelligence agencies renewed powers to compel the likes of Apple, Google and Facebook to hand over encrypted information.

In Britain, lawmakers are completing legislation that could force tech companies to bypass encryption protections in the name of national security. The law — called a “snooper’s charter” by opponents — may compel companies to aid the country’s law enforcement agencies by hacking people’s smartphones and computers, among other powers.

And on Tuesday, French politicians will debate proposals to update antiterrorism laws that may hand tech executives prison sentences of up to five years, as well as fine their companies around $390,000, if they refuse to provide encrypted information to the country’s investigators.

Amendments to the French law — itself a response to the attacks in November — may still pass without the encryption proposals, which are opposed by France’s left-wing government.

But politicians and industry executives say Apple’s fight with the F.B.I. has focused a spotlight on how companies’ efforts to protect users’ messages and other data have made it increasingly difficult for European intelligence agencies to obtain such information.

“When we’re able to recover a cellphone, but authorities have no way of accessing its data, it obviously cripples the work of our surveillance agencies,” said Philippe Goujon, a French politician behind the recent encryption proposals.


“Sure, this could have repercussions internationally,” he added. “But there are other countries in the world that have similar legislation.”