Joint Letter to Five Eyes Intelligence Agencies Regarding Encryption – Human Rights Watch (press release)

To: Senator the Hon. George Brandis Attorney General of Australi

Hon. Christopher Finlayson Attorney General of New Zealand

Hon. Ralph Goodale Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness of Canada

Hon. John Kelly United States Secretary of Homeland Security

Rt. Hon. Amber Rudd Secretary of State for the Home Department, United Kingdom

CC: Hon. Peter Dutton, Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, Australia;

Hon. Ahmed Hussen, Minister of Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship, Canada;

Hon. Jeff Sessions, Attorney General for the United States;

Hon. Jody Wilson-Raybould, Minister of Justice and Attorney General, Canada;

Hon. Michael Woodhouse, Minister of Immigration, New Zealand

To Ministers Responsible for the Five Eyes Security Community

In light of public reports about this weeks meeting between officials from your agencies, the undersigned individuals and organizations write to emphasize the importance of national policies that encourage and facilitate the development and use of strong encryption. We call on you to respect the right to use and develop strong encryption and commit to pursuing any additional dialogue in a transparent forum with meaningful public participation.

This weeks Five Eyes meeting (comprised of Ministers from the United States, United Kingdom, New Zealand, Canada, and Australia) discussed plans to press technology firms to share encrypted data with security agencies and hopes to achieve a common position on the extent of ... legally imposed obligations on device-makers and social media companies to co-operate.[1] In a Joint Communiqu following the meeting, participants committed to exploring shared solutions to the perceived impediment posed by encryption to investigative objectives.[2]

While the challenges of modern day security are real, such proposals threaten the integrity and security of general purpose communications tools relied upon by international commerce, the free press, governments, human rights advocates, and individuals around the world.

Last year, many of us joined several hundred leading civil society organizations, companies, and prominent individuals calling on world leaders to protect the development of strong cryptography. This protection demands an unequivocal rejection of laws, policies, or other mandates or practicesincluding secret agreements with companiesthat limit access to or undermine encryption and other secure communications tools and technologies.[3]

Today, we reiterate that call with renewed urgency. We ask you to protect the security of your citizens, your economies, and your governments by supporting the development and use of secure communications tools and technologies, by rejecting policies that would prevent or undermine the use of strong encryption, and by urging other world leaders to do the same.

Attempts to engineer backdoors or other deliberate weaknesses into commercially available encryption software, to require that companies preserve the ability to decrypt user data, or to force service providers to design communications tools in ways that allow government interception are both shortsighted and counterproductive. The reality is that there will always be some data sets that are relatively secure from state access. On the other hand, leaders must not lose sight of the fact that even if measures to restrict access to strong encryption are adopted within Five Eyes countries, criminals, terrorists, and malicious government adversaries will simply switch to tools crafted in foreign jurisdictions or accessed through black markets.[4] Meanwhile, innocent individuals will be exposed to needless risk.[5] Law-abiding companies and government agencies will also suffer serious consequences.[6] Ultimately, while legally discouraging encryption might make some useful data available in some instances, it has by no means been established that such steps are necessary or appropriate to achieve modern intelligence objectives.

Notably, government entities around the world, including Europol and representatives in the U.S. Congress, have started to recognize the benefits of encryption and the futility of mandates that would undermine it.[7]

We urge you, as leaders in the global community, to remember that encryption is a critical tool of general use. It is neither the cause nor the enabler of crime or terrorism. As a technology, encryption does far more good than harm. We therefore ask you to prioritize the safety and security of individuals by working to strengthen the integrity of communications and systems. As an initial step we ask that you continue any engagement on this topic in a multi-stakeholder forum that promotes public participation and affirms the protection of human rights.

We look forward to working together toward a more secure future.

Sincerely, 83 civil society organizations and eminent individuals (Listed Below)

Access Now

Advocacy for Principled Action in Government

Amnesty International

Amnesty UK

ARTICLE 19

Australian Privacy Foundation

Big Brother Watch

Blueprint for Free Speech

British Columbia Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA)

Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA)

Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE)

Center for Democracy and Techology

Centre for Free Expression, Ryerson University

Chaos Computer Club (CCC)

Constitutional Alliance

Consumer Action

CryptoAustralia

Crypto.Quebec

Defending Rights and Dissent

Demand Progress

Digital Rights Watch

Electronic Frontier Foundation

Electronic Frontiers Australia

Electronic Privacy Information Center

Engine

Equalit.ie

Freedom of the Press Foundation

Friends of Privacy USA

Future Wise

Government Accountability Project

Human Rights Watch

i2Coalition

Index on Censorship

International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group (ICLMG)

Internet NZ

Liberty

Liberty Coalition

Liberty Victoria

Library Freedom Project

My Private Network

New Americas Open Technology Institute

NZ Council for Civil Liberties

OpenMedia

Open Rights Group (ORG)

NEXTLEAP

Niskanen Center

Patient Privacy Rights

PEN International

Privacy International

Privacy Times

Private Internet Access

Restore the Fourth

Reporters Without Borders

Rights Watch (UK)

Riseup Networks

R Street Institute

Samuelson-Glushko Canadian Internet Policy & Public Interest

Clinic (CIPPIC)

Scottish PEN

Subgraph

Sunlight Foundation

TechFreedom

Tech Liberty

The Tor Project

Voices-Voix

World Privacy Forum

Brian Behlendorf | Executive Director, Hyperledger, at the Linux Foundation

Dr. Paul Bernal | Lecturer in IT, IP and Media Law, UEA Law School

Owen Blacker | Founder and director, Open Rights Group; founder, NO2ID

Thorsten Busch | Lecturer & Senior Research Fellow, University of St. Gallen

Gabriella Coleman | Wolfe Chair in Scientific and Technological Literacy at McGill University

Sasha Costanza-Chock | Associate Professor of Civic Media, MIT

Dave Cox | CEO, Liquid VPN

Ron Deibert | The Citizen Lab, Munk School of Global Affairs

Nathan Freitas | Guardian Project

Dan Gillmor | Professor of Practice, Walter Cronkite School of

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Joint Letter to Five Eyes Intelligence Agencies Regarding Encryption - Human Rights Watch (press release)