cross-posted from: https://feddit.de/post/12846267
After Sunday‘s European elections, the EU is planning to reintroduce indiscriminate communications data retention without suspicion and force manufacturers to allow law enforcement access to digital devices such as smartphones and cars.
Specifically, according to the 42-point surveillance plan, manufacturers are to be legally obliged to make digital devices such as smartphones, smart homes, IoT devices, and cars monitorable at all times (“access by design”). Messenger services that were previously securely encrypted are to be forced to allow for interception.
The secure encryption of metadata and subscriber data is to be prohibited. Where requested by the police, GPS location tracking should be activated by service providers (“tracking switch”).
The EU Commission has already contributed specific proposals to the surveillance plan, according to two presentations obtained by the Pirates.
Make sure to vote in the upcoming elections!
The general attitude in the German PP back in the days when I kept track (it’s been a while) was “stop slurping data you’ll never need from people not even under investigation, hire more investigators and do actual police work instead”.
A good example here is the arrest of the founder of silk road: No computers were hacked in the process. They put a team of investigators on it who found OPSEC failures which are kinda unavoidable when you’re up against a state-level actor. All without mass surveillance, only thing needed was good ole police work.
Also, side note, “prevention” and “enforcement” should never be used in the same sentence. The best crime prevention is social policy, not law enforcement. Next in line, swift and fair sentences in juvenile courts, time is very crucial there to form an association in still malleable minds. Next in line, sentences that forego retribution and focus on reintegration.
Just to add – last I remember researching this, none of the terrorists attacks in Europe in the last two decades that were coordinated (and we know how), were coordinated using secure communications. Bataclan was planned over SMS, for instance.
Based German PP.