

Officials want to upgrade rules from device searching to message interception

Smartphone user photo via Shutterstock

Government officials in Germany are reportedly mulling a law to force chat app providers to hand over end-to-end encrypted conversations in plain text on demand.

According to Der Spiegel this month, the Euro nation's Ministry of the Interior wants a new set of rules that would require operators of services like WhatsApp, Signal, Apple iMessage, and Telegram to cough up plain-text records of people's private enciphered chats to authorities that obtain a court order.







Spokespeople for Facebook-owned WhatsApp, and Threema, makers of encrypted messaging software, were not available to comment.

The rules are the latest in an ongoing global feud between the developers of secure messaging apps and the governments. The apps, designed in part to let citizens, journalists, and activists communicate secured from the prying eyes of oppressive government regimes.

The governments, meanwhile, say that the apps also provide a safe haven for criminals and terror groups that want to plan attacks and illegal activities, making it harder for intelligence and police agencies to perform vital monitoring tasks.

The app developers note that even if governments do try to implement mandatory decryption (aka backdoor) capabilities, actually getting those tools to work properly, without opening up a massive new security hole in the platforms that miscreants and criminals could exploit, would be next to impossible. ®

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