The law will allow intelligence agencies to install spyware on users’ devices.
Today, June 10, the ruling authorities of Germany intend to adopt the “Law on Constitutional Protection”. The law significantly expands the surveillance capabilities of the German intelligence services. Despite almost unanimous criticism from experts and significant doubts about constitutionality, the authorities seem determined to pass the law.
The human rights organization Digitale Gesellschaft has published a letter criticizing the use of government trojans by intelligence agencies to carry out wiretaps and expand the powers of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution in the field of surveillance.
At the centre of the criticism is the permission to use government trojans to monitor the original telecommunications data, with the help of which, in particular, stored encrypted messages should be routed and controlled directly on the end devices of users. In this case, it is allowed not only to track the current communication but also in some cases to use the saved messages retrospectively. This not only constitutes a serious infringement on the rights of users but also undermines the security of communications in general, as the authorities hack devices and exploit security holes instead of closing them.
“If the secret services choose to use security updates to install the malware in the future, it will undermine all efforts to establish safe and conscious communication on the Internet,” said Tom Jennissen of Digitale Gesellschaft.
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