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WhatsApp and Signal messages at risk of surveillance following EncroChat ruling, court hears | Computer Weekly (www.computerweekly.com)

submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Police could lawfully use bulk surveillance techniques to access messages from encrypted communications platforms such as WhatsApp and Signal, following a ruling by the UK’s Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT), a court has heard.

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[–] [email protected] 110 points 1 month ago (12 children)

The headline is a little misleading. The actual ruling is that police can obtain warrants to install surveillance malware on phones when they have evidence the owner is using it to communicate about crimes.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

The court heard that the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 allows law enforcement to obtain a TEI warrant for a single investigation or operation, such as the covert monitoring of the activities of an identified organised crime group. However, the lawyers argued that a TEI warrant could not be used to monitor all users of a particular messaging service. It was not enough, they said, that the targets for surveillance were using a common technology “incidental to their suspected criminality”.

I think this is their point. The additional links are walled, but the assertion it sounds to me like they're making is that the ruling authorized them to hack and surveil an entire platform, rather than based on probable cause against specific individuals.

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