By Ji Cheng
Members of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance – Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the US, and the UK – plus Japan and India, recently issued a joint statement demanding high-tech companies using end-to-end encryption technology (E2EE) to insert “backdoors” in encrypted apps. This move indicates that the alliance is no longer contented with enforcing access to specific network devices and contents through legislative approaches but attempts to put every corner of cyberspace under its radar.
However, given the alliance’s nature and its infamous record, the attempt at expanded cyber-surveillance has aroused doubts about its real intention and its persistent double standards regarding the maintenance of cybersecurity.
First, the forced “backdoor” demand on various excuses is against the basic principle of data security. The joint statement released by the Five Eyes reveals a mixed feeling toward encryption technology. On the one hand, it affirms that technology plays a crucial role in protecting personal data, privacy, trade secrets, and cybersecurity. On the other hand, although close attention should be paid to the aforementioned matters, it should not come at the price of stalling the law enforcement in taking action against cybercrimes, and it demands tech companies enable law enforcement access to content in a readable and usable format.
This was not the first time that Five Eyes imposed pressure on tech companies regarding data encryption. In 2018 and 2019, it also made similar requests for access to “backdoors”. Still, in the eyes of data privacy experts, such attempts at the co-existence of security encryption and “backdoors” are nothing more than a political show that runs counter to the principle of real data security.
Second, the alliance attempts to realize cyber hegemony based on its technological advantages by upgrading cyber monitoring. As the core of the Five Eyes alliance, the US, the UK, and Australia have already passed domestic laws to pave the way for enforced access to encrypted data. Australia approved Assistance and Access Bill, the world-first anti- encryption law in 2018. It’s worth noting that Japan and India were also signatories of the alliance’s recent statement. As important geographical pillars of Washington’s Indo-Pacific Strategy, the joining of Japan and India reflected the alliance’s intention of bringing in more members and to, leveraged on its asymmetrical technological advantages, expand the surveillance of cyber information and data and frame a global cyber power landscape in its favor.
At last, smearing and slandering other countries, fabricating cyber threats from them, and applying double standards is detrimental to the lasting stability and governance of the cyberspace. In recent years, the US-led western countries have ramped up their smearing and suppression of foreign high-tech companies in the absence of basic factual evidence, falsely accusing them of opening “backdoors” in their products that they claim would threaten the supply chain security and personal privacy. At the same time, they are blatantly and publicly asking tech companies to open backdoors to facilitate their cyber law enforcement. If this isn’t double standards, what is?
As an intelligence-sharing mechanism that has existed for over half a century, the Five Eyes alliance’s enhanced cyber-surveillance makes the outside world suspicious of its real intentions. In retrospect of some of the contents exposed by Edward Snowden years ago, the US-led West is carrying out organized, large-scale and non-differentiated cyber tapping and monitoring on foreign governments, enterprises, and relevant individuals, even including main political figures of US allies and partners.
All in all, the two-faced practices of the Five Eyes alliance in cyber and information security are not only against the international laws and the basic rules governing international relations but also undermine the efforts to formulate a global code of conduct on cyber and data security that’s universally acceptable by all countries. The US-led West represented by the alliance is the culprit for the increase of risks and confrontation in the cyberspace.
Disclaimer: This article is originally published on china.com.cn and translated from Chinese into English and edited by the China Military Online. The information, ideas or opinions appearing in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of eng.chinamil.com.cn.
