Global Coalition calls on "Five Eyes" nations to respect encryption

A global coalition of NGOs and encryption experts is calling on governments of the “Five Eyes” nations (USA, UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand) to defend the use of strong encryption by private citizens.Protecting strong encryption is important for protecting freedom of speech – widespread surveillance or the possibility of surveillance, chills freedom of expression. Citizens of democratic nations must have the right to retain private information, as a check against the power of large governments and institutions. But if digital encryption is routinely able to be broken by government then there is no longer any such thing as digital private information, private conversations or private history, because if the information exists digitally or online, anyone who can break encryption can view it all.

Undermining strong encryption also leaves open the possibility that encryption-breaking techniques which can be used by governments can be discovered and used by corporations, private institutions, and non-state actors.

Calls to undermine encryption in the name of ‘national security’ are fundamentally misguided and dangerous. Encryption is a necessary and critical tool enabling individual privacy, a free media, online commerce and the operations of organisations of all types, including of course government agencies. Undermining encryption therefore represents a serious threat to national security in its own right, as well as threatening basic human rights and the enormous economic and social benefits that the digital revolution has brought for people across the globe.

– Jon Lawrence, EFA

Encryption protects billions of ordinary people worldwide from criminals and authoritarian regimes. Agencies charged with protecting national security shouldn’t be trying to undermine a cornerstone of security in the digital age.

– Cynthia Wong, Senior Internet Researcher, Human Rights Watch