8 ms·
Does this make freedom of information requests less useful to the public?
by sys13 8y ago
Does this make freedom of information requests less useful to the public?
- TeddyBear060 8y agoWhat do you mean ?
- lazzlazzlazz 8y agoIf progressively more governmental communications are made through encrypted means, we cannot access them as citizens.
- edbaskerville 8y agoYeah, end-to-end encryption is strange here. Aren't there laws in France to ensure retention of government employee communications?
- Akujin 8y agoThe open-source Matrix.org server Synapse has everything in plaintext on the server.
- TeddyBear060 8y agoThanks, I understand but those communications are not supposed to be accessible. This tool will be used by top level gouvernement employees.
- amandine 8y agoIndeed
- pjc50 8y agoIf they're subject to records retention requirements, they should be retained anyway; and if they're not, they're in the same category as things like phone calls which are currently ephemeral. (Note that in first world countries phone calls will be digital everywhere except maybe the last mile, and GSM and upwards are digital to the handset)
- tscs37 8y agoEnd to End encrypted does not mean the messages have to be stored and retained encrypted and inaccessible. I imagine the responsible sysadmins have figured out something to follow retention laws.
- solarkraft 8y agoAnd this is somewhat okay. Though in my opinion there should be some way to lawfully intercept, this brings us back to the same dilemma as with private messaging.
- notriddle 8y agoYou're not supposed to be able to access any and every government communication. You're not supposed to know what the nuke codes are, or when there's an undercover mission in progress, or [insert punchline here]. Presumably, if there's an investigation, they just force the government employee to give up the keys.
- btilly 8y agoJudging from http://www.ucl.ac.uk/constitution-unit/research/foi/countries/france http://www.ucl.ac.uk/constitution-unit/research/foi/countrie... it is already not useful. However theoretically, yes. It is hard to discover which encrypted communications are potentially relevant, and if the officials in question are doing something wrong then they have no cause to cooperate.
- solarkraft 8y agoNo. The information being securely stored does not mean users wouldn't have to turn over the information. However usually FoI doesn't usually apply to instant messaging anyway, I think.
- Cynddl 8y agoIn France, there is also no general Freedom of Information law, except for some administrative documents.
- akditer 8y agoFreedom of information....which amendment is that :P ?
- geoffpado 8y agoThis is France we're talking about, so it's not amendments, but rather Article XV of the "Déclaration des droits de l'homme et du citoyen de 1789": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_the_Rights_of_the_Man_and_of_the_Citizen_of_1789 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_the_Rights_of_t... ("The society has the right of requesting an account from any public agent of its administration."), which is used as the basis for actual legislation today: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/constitution-unit/research/foi/countries/france http://www.ucl.ac.uk/constitution-unit/research/foi/countrie...
- akditer 8y agoI am sorry, I am not french. I thought this is some stupid American law which every Americans expect the rest of the world to know.
- pjc50 8y agoArticle 34, apparently, although I can't really see how it's interpreted from the text. http://www.conseil-constitutionnel.fr/conseil-constitutionnel/english/constitution/constitution-of-4-october-1958.25742.html http://www.conseil-constitutionnel.fr/conseil-constitutionne... http://www.ucl.ac.uk/constitution-unit/research/foi/countries/france http://www.ucl.ac.uk/constitution-unit/research/foi/countrie...
- synchronise 8y agoDepending on the jurisdiction it's an offence to withhold or destroy information that is meant to be available under FoI.
- kqr 8y agoI sure as hell hope so. Otherwise, what's the point of FoI in the first place?