Five Eyes Intelligence Alliance claims that “Privacy is Not Absolute”
The Five Eyes Intelligence Alliance between the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand issued a statement stating that “privacy is not absolute” and advocated that technology companies should include backdoors in their products so they can access encrypted data to better fight crime and terrorism.
End-to-end encryption technology is becoming more and more popular after NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden exposes NSA’s large-scale surveillance operations and exploits cryptographic weaknesses to crack encrypted information. Service providers and product vendors cannot crack the encrypted information of this encryption technology. End encryption increases the difficulty for intelligence agencies to break information. Therefore, the Five Eyes Intelligence Alliance wants communication technology service providers to provide legal access to law enforcement agencies and intelligence agencies. Five Eyes stated that the government needs information to protect citizens, and if it is blocked from accessing information, they may take various measures to achieve a legitimate access plan.
The United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and Canada’s Five Eyes National Government issued a joint memorandum requiring major technology companies to provide the government with a back door to their encryption products for law enforcement agencies to gain access. If the company refuses to offer, then these governments will seek technical, law enforcement, legislative, or other means to enter the encrypted device or service.
The statement comes from the Five Eyes National Conference held last week. The five-eye alliance refers to a multinational monitoring organisation that was created by some secret agreements between the United Kingdom and the United States after World War II. The alliance countries share sensitive information with each other. In the statement, the five governments put pressure on technology companies to provide backdoors for encrypted products for “legitimate” access to equipment during criminal investigations. The report encourages companies to provide backdoors to the government voluntarily. If technology companies resolve and obstruct, the government will use enforcement measures to concentrate on encryption cracking. At this stage, it is more a desire than a mandatory order or threat to require a company to provide a backdoor request. However, the statement mentioned that the government and legislators encountered a more significant resistance movement in cracking encryption, which was seen as a hindrance to law enforcement. The future does not preclude the possibility of requiring companies to provide encrypted information directly to legal action.
