The encryption debate is at a dead end

This week marked the 11th annualData Privacy Dayinitiative and TechRadar Pro is helping to improve data protection awareness with a series of articles exploring data privacy and how it impacts consumers and the businesses they interact with on a daily basis.

Digital privacy debates continue to grow larger and more urgent. Governments worldwide strive to give people more power over their personal data, from the GDPR in Europe, to theCalifornian CCPA, and new data protection laws in Brazil.

These laws have caused confusion about different governments’ stance on encryption. The US government demanded access to Facebook’s encrypted Messenger last year for example, raising questions on whether they want these solutions to be more secure. Creating access through a ’backdoor’ into the messenger would provide a means for companies and governments to bypass encryption, but others could exploit this built-in weakness.

This runs contrary to the technologies companies are using to secure their sensitive data in light of legislation for data protection. One of the main tools being used to secure data in transit is end-to-end encryption (E2EE). Collaboration tools based on E2EE are replacing email in some companies, beside increased p