Technical community urges EU to ensure expert participation in encryption roadmap
In an open letter, the group calls on Commissioner Henna Virkkunen to ensure that cryptographers, privacy specialists and digital-rights advocates are meaningfully involved in shaping the policy, arguing that secure communications cannot coexist with law-enforcement backdoors and that EU lawmaking must be guided by scientific evidence rather than political assumptions.
A coalition of 39 organisations and 43 independent experts has issued an open letter calling on European Commissioner Henna Virkkunen to include technical and civil-society voices in the European Commission’s forthcoming Technology Roadmap on encryption. The signatories, coordinated by European Digital Rights (EDRi), argue that meaningful participation from cryptographers, cybersecurity specialists, academics, and human-rights experts is essential to prevent policy decisions that could weaken secure communications and undermine fundamental rights.
The letter responds to the Commission’s recent Internal Security Strategy, ProtectEU, unveiled on 1 April. As part of this strategy, the Commission announced plans to develop an encryption roadmap that would examine ways to give law-enforcement authorities access to encrypted data. While the strategy frames access as a tool for security, the proposal has raised concern among digital rights advocates and technical experts who say it risks reopening a long-running debate over “backdoors” into encrypted systems.
The signatories stress that encryption underpins online safety, privacy, and secure communication for individuals, businesses, and state institutions. They point out that years of research and policy discussion have not altered the established scientific position: creating exceptional access for law enforcement inevitably creates new vulnerabilities that can be exploited by malicious actors, including criminals and hostile governments. In their view, proposals to weaken end-to-end encryption ignore the technical reality that secure systems cannot include targeted access mechanisms without compromising security for all users.
The open letter also references past EU initiatives, including the High-Level Group on Access to Data for Effective Law Enforcement and the previous Commission’s work on the draft Child Sexual Abuse Regulation, where critics say expert warnings about encryption risks were sidelined. The coalition stresses that EU lawmaking must reflect technological evidence rather than political assumptions or what it calls ‘magical thinking.’
With Commissioner Virkkunen now responsible for the encryption roadmap, the authors express hope for a shift toward transparent, evidence-based policymaking grounded in technical expertise. They ask for a formal role in consultations to help ensure that the roadmap protects cybersecurity and fundamental rights while addressing legitimate law-enforcement needs.
The letter concludes with an offer to collaborate constructively with EU institutions. The signatories emphasise that strong encryption is especially vital in the current geopolitical environment, where secure communications and resilient digital infrastructure are essential for democratic societies. They urge the Commission to steer clear of weakening key security protections and to reinforce Europe’s commitment to privacy, data protection, freedom of expression, and robust cybersecurity standards.
Read the open letter.
