New report: Breaking encryption is legally and practically unworkable

Index on Censorship has today published a new report entitled Breaking encryption is legally and practically unworkable which sets out our position on why governments should not break end-to-end encryption (E2EE).

Major service providers such as WhatsApp – which alone services 42 million users in the UK – Telegram, and Signal, use E2EE, allowing their users to securely send private messages that only they can read. E2EE works by scrambling the contents of a message into unintelligible code using a pair of cryptographic keys. In systems protected by E2EE, only the sender and the recipient hold the keys needed to decrypt the message, meaning that no one else – not even the service provider itself – can access its contents.

E2EE is an essential factor in protecting individuals and businesses from hacking, identity and personal data theft, and fraud, and it is a critical tool used by individuals for whom their safety and security depend on their communications being private and secure. This includes journalists communicating with their sources, dissidents under authoritarian regimes, human rights defenders, and victims in victim support groups.

The report builds upon years of work by Index on Censorship, parliamentarians, and independent counsel at Matrix Chambers to clearly and unequivocally demonstrate that “Technology Notices” that can be issued by Ofcom under s. 121 of the Online Safety Act 2023 (the “OSA”) are fundamentally incompatible with international and domestic human rights laws: their effect would amount to ending access to end-to-end encrypted messaging in the United Kingdom, contravening Articles 8 and 10 of the European Court of Human Rights and breaching Ofcom’s obligations under the Human Rights Act 1998, fundamentally alter the face of digital communications in the United Kingdom, and leave the UK government vulnerable to a barrage of diplomatic and international legal disputes.

At Index on Censorship, we have published censored writers across the globe since 1972. Today, we’re using encrypted messaging apps to keep in touch with our network of correspondents around the world, from Iran, to Afghanistan, to Hong Kong. 

We were vindicated in raising the alarm over the government’s ongoing crusade against encryption, its potential abuse under the IPA, and we have repeatedly called for Ofcom’s power to issue Technology Notices to be removed from the OSA given their legal and practical failings.

While the OSA’s aims are commendable, the road to mass censorship is paved with good intentions, and the Government still has the chance to avoid this legal headache and practical international embarrassment.

Read the report here or flip through it below.

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