Europol chief calls on tech giants to unlock encrypted messages

The chief of Europol chief has urged technology companies to cooperate with law enforcement in unlocking encrypted messages. A failure to do so threatens European democracy, she said. 

Speaking ahead of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Catherine De Bolle, former general commissioner of the Belgian federal police and head of the EU’s policing agency Europol, said tech firms had to cooperate more with law enforcement.

She said they had a “social responsibility” to grant police access to encrypted communications used by criminals to evade detection.

“Anonymity is not a fundamental right“

“Anonymity is not a fundamental right,” she told the Financial Times. She drew an analogy between digital encryption and a locked door during a physical police search.

“When we have a search warrant and we are in front of a house and the door is locked, and you know that the criminal is inside of the house, the population will not accept that you cannot enter.”

Privacy and security

Law enforcement agencies across Europe have long been at odds with tech companies over end-to-end encryption, which prevents authorities from accessing private communications even with a legal warrant. Companies such as Apple, WhatsApp, and Signal argue that compromising encryption would endanger user privacy and security.

The Europol chief said that in a digital environment, the police needed to be able to decode these messages to fight crime. “You will not be able to enforce democracy without it,” she added.

In 2021, the agency helped crack the messaging services EncroChat and Sky ECC. Access to messages of criminals led to multiple criminal cases and thousands of arrests. Last year, more than 100 people were tried in Belgium’s largest criminal trial, as a result of the Sky ECC decryption. 

Intelligent age

De Bolle’s statements are an attempt to put more pressure on companies as they gear up to attend this week’s World Economic Forum in Davos, where discussions will be centered on the theme Cooperation for the Intelligent Age. 

In addition to encryption concerns, she highlighted the need to expand Europol’s capabilities in artificial intelligence and addressing hybrid threats, such as recent allegations of undersea cable sabotage in the Baltic. Currently, Europol’s mandate is limited to tackling organised crime and cannot intervene in state-level threats without new EU legislation.

Under De Bolle’s leadership, Europol has doubled its workforce to around 1,700 employees, and European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen has called for further expansion to enhance the agency’s operational capacity.

​^{Catherine De Bolle © BELGA PHOTO HATIM KAGHAT}