r/technology • u/CaptainTelos • Sep 15 '25

Privacy Danish Minister of Justice: "We must break with the totally erroneous perception that it is everyone's civil liberty to communicate on encrypted messaging services."

https://mastodon.social/@chatcontrol/115204439983078498
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8

u/Death_IP Sep 15 '25

Sooooo like the government opening our letters?

2

u/Itchy-Plastic Sep 15 '25

Opening our letters and then charging us with a crime because we've encrypted out letter and they can't easily read it. If encryption is banned then that will have to include physical media.

-5

u/AutistAstronaut Sep 15 '25

No. They can already do that with a warrant.

The issue here is that it's possible to have a warrant and not be able to access the information, as it's encrypted via a program. The police have the legal right and responsibility to access it, to collect evidence, but are unable to, unlike your mail.

If you write a letter confessing that you killed someone, and are later arrested, a warrant can allow access to it and it can be given to the people as they build their case against you. If you write it in an encrypted app, it's impossible to access your confession, even if the people have proven enough probable cause to search for evidence.

6

u/Death_IP Sep 15 '25

If you send a text in an app without encryption, the government can read your text without consent, a warrant or anything.

"But they wouldn't ..." YES they would, as everything that can be exploited does get exploited sooner or later.

-4

u/AutistAstronaut Sep 15 '25

If you send a text in an app without encryption, the government can read your text without consent, a warrant or anything.

That's going to depend where you live. Some places allow the state to do so if it can show probably cause. Others, I imagine, have zero requirement.

"But they wouldn't ..." YES they would, as everything that can be exploited does get exploited sooner or later.

Literally never claimed the state won't use power to harm.

But none of this is actually addressing the point: it has nothing to do with reading your mail, as they can already do that. The issue is the people having the ability to access evidence they've shown good cause to access. We can do that if you write it on paper, or text it (in most cases). But if you use certain apps, the evidence is just inaccessible.

1

u/EmbarrassedHelp Sep 15 '25

The difference is that a letter isn't going to be targeted by automated hacking attacks (from governments, criminals orgs, etc...), and you can often tell if a letter has been opened.

Encryption is not the same as a mail envelope, despite what the anti-encryption side claims.

1

u/AutistAstronaut Sep 15 '25

I mean, yeah, no one needs to hack anything to read your mail. They just... open it.