Austria’s coalition government has agreed on a plan to enable police to monitor suspects’ secure messaging in order to thwart militant attacks, ending what security officials have said is a rare and dangerous blind spot for a European Union country.
Because Austria lacks a legal framework for monitoring messaging services like WhatsApp, its main domestic intelligence service and police rely on allies with far more sweeping powers like Britain and the United States alerting them to chatter about planned attacks and spying.
“The aim is to make people planning terrorist attacks in Austria feel less secure - and increase everyone else’s sense of security,” Joerg Leichtfried of the Social Democrats, the junior minister in charge of overseeing the Directorate for State Security and Intelligence (DSN), told a news conference.
“That is why this decision by the cabinet today is an important milestone in the fight against terrorism and spying in Austria,” he added.
Once parliament passes the legislation, a tender process for monitoring technology would be launched, and monitoring would begin in 2027, the government said.
My question is, how do they monitor? WhatsApp has E2EE encryption. So, did they break the encryption? Is this about planting malware on phones? Or is it about monitoring metadata?
This legislation merely creates the legal framework for the surveillance. Once it’s in place, they plan to shop around for vendors, presumably spyware makers like the NSO Group.
I wonder what software they will use, austrian government has since some years now the possibility to extract phone data from smartphones, there are possibilities for surveillance without the actual legal framework, but this simplifies it. (just look into the TKG)
Well, officially and legally it is just standard lawful interception, adjusted for new messaging protocols.
Under the new system, monitoring of a person’s messaging must be approved by a three-judge panel and should only apply to a limited number of cases.
“The police must have a well-founded suspicion of a possible terror attack” to monitor a person’s messaging under the new system
Of course, the question is, will it be used unlawfully by law enforcement and is this just a first step towards mass surveillance by government agencies.