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The going dark debate has spread to Europe. The commercial growth of encryption and a wave of terrorist attacks have spurred new laws to detect and disrupt terrorism. This article reviews the most recent encryption-related legislation in France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Hungary, and Poland. The article discusses the legislative debates, as well as aims to achieve coordination at the EU level. Although Europe has so far disavowed banning encryption or mandating pre-installed backdoors, several countries have enacted statutes authorizing compelled decryption. The article concludes by briefly comparing the European approach to the American legal regime.

The Encryption Debate in Europe by Hoover Institution on Scribd


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Daniel Severson is a Harvard Law School and Harvard Kennedy School graduate. He served as editor-in-chief of the Harvard International Law Journal and writes for Lawfare. Daniel was a Harvard University Presidential Public Service Fellow at the Defense Department, a Council of American Ambassadors Fellow at the State Department, and a Fulbright Scholar in Taiwan. He plays the French horn.

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