The Irish government’s proposed Communications (Interception and Lawful Access) Bill would significantly expand the state’s ability to monitor digital communications, thereby striking at the very foundation of end-to-end encryption.
This form of encryption, used by services like WhatsApp, iMessage, and Signal, ensures that only the sender and the recipient can access the content of a message. Under the new bill, Gardaí, the Defence Forces, and the Garda Ombudsman would be allowed to intercept private messages in real time. Achieving this would require altering or bypassing encryption entirely.
Such a measure would introduce a permanent vulnerability into digital infrastructure. Once a system is designed to allow access for one party, others can and will exploit it.
Backdoors do not stay private. They create a single point of failure that can be used by cybercriminals, hostile foreign governments, or commercial spyware operations.
The government claims that oversight and warrant requirements will ensure the powers are used responsibly. However, no legal safeguard can address the underlying technical risk created by breaking encryption.
The presence of a backdoor makes every message on a platform more exposed, whether or not it is the target of surveillance. Encryption cannot be selectively weakened. Any interference compromises the security of the system for all users.
Major technology companies have already taken strong positions against laws that would force them to degrade encryption.
Apple recently removed some of its data protection features from the UK rather than comply with legislation that would have weakened user privacy.
Hellbound and Down 