Austrian Police to Decrypt WhatsApp Messages “In the Future”

At a Ministry of Justice meeting in Austria, Mag. Konrad Kogler, Director General for Public Security, spoke of law enforcement’s nearing ability to intercept and decrypt WhatsApp messages. He explained the difficulties even caused police, especially in cases of terrorism and drug trafficking.

“The first approach between drug addicts, drug traffickers or IS recruiters mostly [starts with] the telephone,” the Director General for Public Security said at the July 31 meeting. Kogler believed that a mass-ban on encryption would solve many of the current and upcoming criminal issues in Austria. Terrorism is a major threat. “We do not know anything about it, just that something is going on,” he said, referring to a constant flow of cases where a crime had clearly occurred but police lacked the manpower to continue with the investigation.

On the BMI website, an ambitious press representative titled the release as follows: “The police will be able to decrypt WhatsApp messages in the future.” However, Austrian chancellor Christian Kern, while agreeing that the government needed new ways to fight terrorism and crime in general, the discussion needed to include “the basic freedom of citizens.”

As of early July in the Netherlands, law enforcement can now hack suspects’ contacts, and naturally the suspect as well. Law enforcement in Germany, in Spain, and in the UK have wide open hacking powers. Chancellor Christian Kern used those as examples, even though Spain passed their hacking laws in 2015.

While the plans have been scrapped, Austrian authorities came close to implementing a “Federal Trojan.” Of course, this project stalled once authorities had discovered that they lacked the skills required to create such a trojan. During 2016, Interior Minister Wolfgang Sobotka pushed a bill that he, along with many others in government, believed would end terrorist communication. “If terrorists use Messenger, we must be able to listen to this communication,” Sobotka explained at a debate.

Germany’s trojan, one of a similar nature—yet created “in house” by competent German technicians within the government. An Austrian official spoke of the complexity of the trojan. And despite Germany’s ability to create such a trojan, the Austrian government lacked the know-how while receiving the equivalent of legal beating from lawyers and privacy advocate groups.

The police in Austria may soon be able to read encrypted messages from apps like WhatsApp, the ability may be further in the future than the Director General enthusiastically announced.