Defend End-to-End Encryption
Stop the War on Encryption
Governments keep trying to punch a hole in the encryption that protects your messages, your money, and your privacy. A hole for one of them is a hole for everyone.
Join the Movement
A backdoor built for the “good guys” is a backdoor for everyone.
01
What Encryption Protects
End-to-end encryption means only you and the person you are talking to can read what you send. Not the app, not your phone company, not a hacker, not the government. The same math protects your bank transfers, your medical records, your work files, and the government’s own classified traffic.
Encryption is ordinary infrastructure, not a niche tool for people with something to hide. Billions of everyday messages, calls, and payments depend on it. Weaken it for one purpose and you weaken it for all of them.
02
How Governments Come for It
Governments have found two ways to get at encryption without admitting they want to ban it.
The first is to order it directly. A regulator demands that services scan messages before they are sent, or build a way to hand over readable data on request. The UK, Australia, and the EU each take some version of this route.
The second is to make encryption a legal liability. Rather than banning it, the law exposes any company that offers it to lawsuits or prosecution over content it cannot see. Faced with that risk, the safe business decision is to drop real encryption. That is the American approach, and the result is the same: a ban reached through the back door.
03
The Fight Around the World
Current as of July 2026.
United States Liability route
In the United States the pressure comes through liability rather than an outright ban. The EARN IT Act would remove platforms’ Section 230 liability shield for child-exploitation claims, leaving any service that offers encryption exposed to lawsuits because it cannot monitor content. The STOP CSAM Act (S.1829) lets people sue providers over material they cannot see, and cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2025. The Cooper Davis and Devin Norring Act (H.R.4518) would turn messaging services into DEA reporters. The Lawful Access to Encrypted Data Act is the bluntest of the group: it would require companies to hand over readable user data on a court order, for stored data and messages in transit alike, which cannot be done without a backdoor. All are stalled for now, and all keep coming back.
European Union In trilogue
The EU’s plan is Chat Control. The temporary version (Regulation 2021/1232) lets providers scan unencrypted messages and was extended to 2028. The permanent version, the CSA Regulation, would go much further and has been fought to a standstill through five rounds of closed-door negotiation that resume in September 2026. It would apply across all 27 EU member states at once. See the full breakdown.
United Kingdom Law in force
The Online Safety Act is already law, and from January 2026 platforms must run automated scanning for illegal content. It also gives the regulator, Ofcom, the power to order services to scan encrypted messages using “accredited technology.” That technology does not exist yet, and the government accepts Ofcom cannot require what does not exist, so the encryption-breaking power sits loaded but unused. Signal and Element have said they would leave the UK rather than comply.
Australia Powers in reserve
The Assistance and Access Act (TOLA) has been on the books since 2018. It lets agencies compel a company to help decrypt communications, and even to build new capabilities to do so. The powers are broad, rarely disclosed, and so far little used, but they remain the template other governments point to when they argue their own version is reasonable.
04
A Backdoor Can’t Be Kept Safe
Any backdoor built for investigators is a backdoor for everyone else too. A key that opens your messages can be stolen, copied, subpoenaed by a future government, or found by a foreign intelligence service. Security researchers have said this for decades, and the latest proposals do not change the math.
You cannot build a lock that only opens for the “good guys.”
This is why the people who build secure messengers treat it as a red line. Signal has said it would leave the United Kingdom and the European Union rather than weaken its encryption, and it takes the same position anywhere else. When the choice is a broken product or no product, they pull out. The tools that protect journalists, abuse survivors, and businesses become unavailable, while the criminals the laws target move to services beyond any government’s reach.
05
The Same Playbook Everywhere
The wrapper changes from country to country. The contents do not.
The justification is always a serious harm: child abuse, terrorism, drugs. The demand is always the same, to scan private messages or weaken the encryption that protects them. And the target is always everyone, because a tool that can inspect some messages has to be able to inspect all of them.
This is why the fight cannot be won in one place and left there. When a mandate stalls in one country, its backers point to the next country that tried it and bring it back. Encryption holds everywhere, or it holds nowhere.
06
How to Argue Back
A quick-reference guide for conversations, comment threads, and letters to the people who represent you.
When they say: “It’s about stopping child abuse and crime.”
Everyone shares that goal. Breaking encryption is the wrong tool. Exposing everyone’s private messages does not stop determined criminals, who move to services outside any law, and it strips protection from the victims, families, and vulnerable people who depend on private channels most.
Targeted, warrant-based investigations catch offenders. A broken lock on everyone’s phone does not.
When they say: “If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.”
Confidential communication protects the people who need it most: abuse survivors contacting a helpline, journalists and their sources, whistleblowers, doctors and patients, lawyers and clients. Privacy is the condition that lets vulnerable people speak safely, and surveillance silences them first.
When they say: “The law has an encryption exception, so it’s fine.”
An exception on paper is not protection in practice. If a company can still be sued or prosecuted over content it cannot see, the safe move is to stop offering encryption and avoid the risk. Liability is the backdoor, and these measures are written that way on purpose.
When they say: “They can just scan for the illegal stuff.”
Scanning the content of an encrypted message means breaking or bypassing the encryption first. Once the scanner sits on your device or inside the service, it can be pointed at anything, and it becomes a target for everyone who wants in. Cryptographers who have studied client-side scanning call it unworkable and dangerous.
When they say: “Only criminals need encryption.”
Encryption protects your bank, your hospital, your employer, your government, and your family group chat. The same standard that guards a Signal message guards a wire transfer and a medical record. There is no separate “criminal” encryption to remove.
What actually helps:
Targeted, court-authorized investigations of real suspects; following the metadata and money trails that criminals leave behind; and properly funding the units that do this work. These catch offenders without handing over a master key to everyone’s private life.
Take Action
Encryption is defended one vote at a time. Tell the people who represent you to protect strong encryption and reject any mandate to scan or weaken it.
Contact Your Lawmaker
Reach the people writing these laws. Choose your country and contact your representatives directly.
Email Your Representative
Subject: Protect strong encryption
Dear [YOUR REPRESENTATIVE],
I am one of your constituents, writing to ask you to protect strong end-to-end encryption and to oppose any measure that would scan, weaken, or build a backdoor into private messages, whether directly or through legal liability.
Encryption secures banking, medical records, business, and government, along with ordinary private conversations. A backdoor built for the authorities cannot be limited to the authorities.
Please defend encryption and reject mandates to scan or break it.
Sincerely,
[YOUR NAME]
[YOUR COUNTRY]
