The Cybersecurity Advisors Network (CyAN) is proud to support efforts to enhance security, privacy, resilience, and trust for the global digital economy and the society it operates in. We believe that a citizen’s right to know that their personal data, their communications, and their online activity are safe from blanket espionage and surveillance, and as secure as possible against all forms of cyber-attacks must be inviolate. It is our position that the enforced addition of technological “back doors”, no matter how well intended, to encryption and other security mechanisms bears the risk not only of government overreach, but also of exploitation by criminal and other malicious actors.

In the United Kingdom, the Home Office has issued a demand to Apple Inc., to allow authorized agents of His Majesty’s Government access to Apple’s end-to-end encryption mechanisms for investigatory purposes – thus introducing the risk of major impact to the security of users of Apple’s devices and services around the world.

The Global Encryption Coalition, one of CyAN’s partner organizations, has organized a drive to collect signatures from groups and high-profile individuals around the world, opposing this initiative.

In the spirit of our stance against the European Commission’s now-defunct “chat control” regulation, CyAN has added its voice to the GEC’s open letter to the British Home Secretary.

You can find the text of the Joint Letter, and a list of signatories, here.

We encourage our members, stakeholders, friends, partners, and other entities supporting the global right to privacy and security, to add your voices to this effort, via the signature form here.