Europol chief says Big Tech has ‘responsibility’ to unlock encrypted messages

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Technology giants must do more to co-operate with law enforcement on encryption or they risk threatening European democracy, according to the head of Europol, as the agency gears up to renew pressure on companies at the World Economic Forum in Davos this week.

Catherine De Bolle told the Financial Times she will meet Big Tech groups in the Swiss mountain resort to discuss the matter, claiming that companies had a “social responsibility” to give the police access to encrypted messages that are used by criminals to remain anonymous.

“Anonymity is not a fundamental right,” said the EU law enforcement agency’s executive director. “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.”

In a digital environment, the police need to be able to decode these messages to fight crime, she added. “You will not be able to enforce democracy [without it].”

There has long been a tension between tech companies and law enforcement over the use of end-to-end encryption on messaging platforms, which makes it difficult for police to obtain evidence in investigations.

In April last year, European police chiefs called on governments and industry to take urgent action to prevent encryption from undermining crime investigations.

Tech companies, including Apple, Meta’s WhatsApp and privacy-focused messaging app Signal, have consistently fought off legal efforts to compromise their encryption, arguing that it would threaten their users’ privacy and security. Apple has stepped up its efforts in recent years to co-operate with law enforcement to tackle child abuse online and other crimes. But such moves have largely been abandoned due to a fierce backlash from privacy campaigners. 

Some EU member states, including Germany, have also been sceptical of giving law enforcement greater access to private messages, resulting in legislation to fight child sexual abuse remaining stuck.

De Bolle, 54, a Belgian who took up the helm of Europol in 2018 and is entering her last full year in post, also said she would like to expand the use of artificial intelligence in the agency’s investigations and to look at “hybrid threats”, such as the recent allegations against Russia of cutting undersea cables in the Baltic.

At present, Europol can only look at criminal organisations and must bow out if there are criminal activities at a state level, De Bolle said, adding that a change would require new EU legislation.

Europol, which uses its giant trove of data to help states combat serious and organised crime in areas such as terrorism, drug trafficking and fraud, has doubled in size to about 1,700 staff under De Bolle.

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said last year that she wanted to further increase Europol’s staff and strengthen its mandate to “become a truly operational police agency”.

Outside its work for EU member states, a number of countries, including the UK and the US, have desks within the agency. 

De Bolle said she did not anticipate much change to the US set-up after Donald Trump takes up the presidency this month, based on his previous term in office. The US has about 30 officials sitting in-house at Europol from a number of different agencies, such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation. 

She said she had yet to meet the incoming Trump administration. 

Europol demonstrated its value last year with the disruption of the prolific LockBit ransomware group, which involved the FBI and the US justice department.

The agency has also played a big role in combating drug trafficking in Europe, including helping decode the messaging services EncroChat and Sky ECC, which were used by criminals. Access to their messages has led to a multitude of criminal cases and thousands of arrests. 

Last year, more than 100 people were sentenced in Belgium’s largest ever criminal trial, based on evidence from the Sky ECC decryption. De Bolle said more cases stemming from the decryption of the messaging services were to come.

Europol will publish its four-yearly assessment of serious and organised crime facing the EU in March, which would include information on foreign interference, De Bolle said.

Additional reporting from Tim Bradshaw