Photo by Towfiqu Barbhuiya on Unsplash
Have you ever wondered how data stays secure, or how companies safeguard important information?
Encrypted communications occur when information is exchanged between various parties on the internet. Third parties who are not included in it cannot access the data or see what is occurring. This goes for multiple things that people use in their everyday lives, and encryption is used to ensure that important information can be sent with confidence that it will remain private. Many use encryption to store their crucial data.
An ongoing debate has been over whether lawful access to backdoors should be granted. This means that “keys” can be given out lawfully to open these “doors” in order to find what’s behind them.
Law enforcement wants this because many criminals, especially human traffickers, use encrypted communications to recruit people into human trafficking. They do this through false promises of employment, education, and romance on a global scale. Many times, law enforcement is unable to obtain evidence to put people behind bars, even when they have a warrant, due to end-to-end encryption and passwords.
And it’s not just human traffickers either; it’s also terrorists and drug cartels as well. But end-to-end encryption has been found to slow down law enforcement during investigations and prosecutions. This leads to cases not being solved.
In one instance, courts gave permission to law enforcement to intercept 2,101 wiretaps in 2023. Of these, 427 wiretraps were encrypted, and of those, 425 of the wiretraps could not be decrypted. That’s around 90% of those cases that, to this day, have still not been decrypted, and this is just one of many instances.
Many argue that lawful access to encrypted communications are needed to reduce crime, as law enforcement would be able to easily obtain evidence and take down major crime groups. In theory, it’s perfect, but there are some major flaws.
The first is that lawful access could create a major public safety issue because you are compromising people’s privacy and security. Having backdoors open makes servers more vulnerable to hackers and cyber attacks since the encryption that was there as a means of protection is now gone. You are essentially compromising the safety of all citizens in order to catch criminals, who represent a much smaller percentage of the total population.
At length lawful access is not worth compromising people’s privacy, security, and safety, which would only create more crime.
Furthermore, lawful access only pushes criminals further underground; they’ll find new methods, routes, and ways to communicate. They move elsewhere and become more secure.
Instead of relying on lawful access, which would only do more harm than good, another method is needed. One is the Enhanced Collaborative Model (ECM). The ECM is a federal system that works to reduce human trafficking, along with many resources and programs that have been proven to make an actual difference.
Governments are supposed to protect their systems, but lawful access would be a poor decision, even if well-intentioned, since it would only pose a greater risk to the security of innocent people.
Encryption is a strong digital tool we can use to protect ourselves and our country. Let’s make this world a better place for everyone by supporting security, privacy, and safety.
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