Developed in tandem with the European Commission’s Joint Research Center, the platform will increase Europol’s decryption capabilities to combat organized crime, terrorism and child sexual abuse, a Europol press release read.
“This decryption platform will help police to investigate terrorism and serious and organised criminality. It will be important in the fight against online child sexual abuse. National police forces can now send lawfully obtained evidence to Europol for decryption,” EU Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson was quoted as saying.
According to the press release, the European Cybercrime Centre will operate the platform and provide its expertise in supporting EU Member States in criminal investigations.
The statement underscores that the inauguration of the platform will not weaken encryption for citizens in the bloc.
The platform may prove to be a watershed moment as debate about how inviolable data encryption should be has been ongoing in recent years. Encryption is the cornerstone of the EU’s staunch internet privacy culture, but coordinated terrorist attacks and sophisticated child sex rings have increased calls granting security forces the ability to unlock end-to-end encrypted messages.