PARIS — Tech firms must do much more to help anti-terror investigators access encrypted chats between terrorists, French and Belgian prosecutors urged at a press conference Friday.
Many of their requests for help are currently ignored, said Paris prosecutor François Molins, who appeared alongside his Belgian counterpart, Frederic Van Leeuw, at the Justice Palace in Paris.
The joint appeal comes after a series of attacks over the past year in which investigators believe terrorists were communicating undetected via the encrypted chat applications such as Telegram. Investigators had no way of deciphering their messages.
“The problem exists just as much for electronic communication providers as it does for the makers of tools for electronic communications” — François Molins
“The problem exists just as much for electronic communication providers as it does for the makers of tools for electronic communications,” the prosecutors said.
Among other tech firms, Apple has been cited in terrorism probes as a mobile phone maker whose devices are difficult to access. Investigators have also complained that Telegram and other encrypted chat applications for mobile phones have become part of the modern terrorists’ basic toolkit.
Neither Molins nor Van Leeuw named any specific firms. But they did point out that most of the firms in question were based outside France or Belgium.
To obtain their help in accessing encrypted messages, investigators were reduced to pleading with the companies, often to no avail.
“There are applications to which we no longer bother sending any requests [for assistance] because we know in advance there will be no response forthcoming,” said Molins. “This is a factor of paralysis in some investigations.”
To prevent future attacks and help track down terrorists, countries around the world needed to establish a common legal framework that would enable investigators to make systematic requests for accessing encrypted information and sharing it.
“There have been some advances, notably with certain American operators, which allowed us to obtain information in the case of very serious [terrorist] threats,” Molins said. But, he added: “We will continue to raise the issue as long as we run into these problems.”
“There must be a global response, it must be on the scale of several countries, and even several continents.”
Asked whether an Iraqi military offensive against ISIL, currently underway in northern Iraq raised the risk of attacks in Europe, Molins said: “As soon as they are in trouble in Iraq and Syria, naturally they can be tempted to activate other means they have in Europe to conduct terrorist actions here, and that’s a view that is shared by all the intelligence agencies in Europe.”