- Experts put to warn again against EU plans to weaken encryption
- On May 26, 2025, 89 signatories published a joint letter to urge the European Commission to “crop its approach”.
- Unveiled last April, Protectuu aims to find a legal means of creating a stolen door in encrypted communications
The EU plan to create a legal stolen door in encrypted communications continues to raise concerns.
This time, 89 signatories from the technology industry – including civil society organizations, some of the best VPNs and email suppliers, and cybersecurity experts – warn the dangers of confidentiality and safety of the technological roadmap on encryption included in the Protect strategy.
In a joint letter published on Monday, May 26, 2025, experts now urged the European Commission to “crop its approach” and protect strong encryption practices.
The need for strong encryption
“Although we recognize the importance of raising safety efforts during the moments of increased geopolitical instability, we are concerned about the framing of the technological roadmap,” wrote experts.
Encryption, the scrambling of data in an illegible form to prevent unwanted access, is the backbone of how services as a signal, WhatsApp and Proton Mail work. However, the police have long argued that this technology is an obstacle to criminal investigations.
While Cyberattaque incidents continue to get into the world, however, even government organizations, such as FBI and CISA in the United States, have started to encourage citizens to switch to end-to-end services to retaliate these threats.
The European Commission itself previously recognized encryption if necessary to protect the integrity of cyberspace.
This is why, for the signatories, who include the tastes of proton, surfhark, tuta email, mozilla and element, alongside cryptographers and digital rights groups, this technology remains a “key cybersecurity tool” which cannot be compromised.
“Saper encryption weakens the very foundations of communications and secure systems, leaving individuals, businesses and public institutions more vulnerable to attacks,” they wrote.
🔒 𝐄𝐧𝐜𝐫𝐲𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐈𝐬 𝐈𝐬 🔒 🔒 🔒 🔒 🔒 🔒 🔒 🔒 🔒 🔒 🔒 🔒 🔒 🔒 🔒 🔒 🔒 🔒 🔒 🔒 ~ 90 orgs & individuals, we sent an open letter to the European Commission to maintain a strong encryption.May 26, 2025
Protectuu is the first step in the EU Commission plan to strengthen the security of the European block in the coming years. Although we do not know much at the time of writing, we know that the strategy includes the search for a technical means of creating encryption deadlines in software. This is exactly what worries the most technological benches the most.
They wrote: “We are deeply concerned about the continuous accent of the Commission on the identification of the means to weaken or bypassing encryption.
The European Commission has already attempted to weaken encryption with its proposal to scan the communications of all citizens to stop the spread of the sexual matter of children, in fact. Considered by criticisms as chat control, the bill fails to attract the necessary majority since 2022.
Along the way, the European Court of Human Rights even ruled on “illegal breakage encryption”, a blow for supporters of digitization technologies on the customer side to monitor encrypted communications.
Did you know?
While messaging applications and email providers should be the main target of legislators, an EU expert group has explicitly qualified the VPN services “key challenges” at the investigation work of law enforcement agencies for the very first time, alongside encrypted devices, applications and new communication operators.
Now, experts believe that what legislators aim to do within the framework of the Protective Strategy will lead to the same security, human rights and responsibility issues.
They then urge the technological roadmap on encryption by also taking into account the concerns of the industry, not only those of the police.
“Any future roadmap which aspires to be credible and balanced must take into account the feasibility of all potential technological capacities and their societal, technical and legal impact”, they conclude.
This is the second time that digital and technological rights experts have come together to call upon the European Commission not to undermine encryption with the new plan protected since April 1, 2025, the day the plan was revealed for the first time. Also on this occasion, experts urged legislators to make an active part of the process.
