EU Data Protection Chief: Encryption should be promoted, backdoors should be illegal
European citizens' communications should be protected on all mediums, including online, by telephone, over VoIP services, and across apps. Decryptions and other efforts to weaken or reverse engineer encryption should be prohibited. This is the conclusion that the EU's Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) reached with regards to the EU's ePrivacy Directive.
Giovanni Buttarelli, the EDPS and Europe's so-called data chief, expressed his view in an official piece published as the European Commission is looking to revamp the EU ePrivacy Directive – the "Cookie Law" – to get it in line the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).