> Why should drug cartels have free and EASY access to such wonderful encrypted sales platform? Drug cartels will continue to have easy access to such platform

> Why should drug cartels have free and EASY access to such wonderful encrypted sales platform? Drug cartels will continue to have easy access to such platforms, as will anyone willing to do business with them, since such cartels and their business partners do not care about following the law. The same is true for child pornographers, hitmen, and so on. The technology exists and does not inherently depend on any middleman amenable to EU authority. No EU legislation can reverse that. All this might do is force them to switch to a different chat provider that will ignore EU law, or to run one themselves. The true effect of any legislation that purports to circumvent end-to-end encryption to address the concerns you list will primarily be reducing the privacy of law-abiding people, including those who really need it: a French journalist reporting on corruption in a public contract bidding process, a Hungarian dissident organizing opposition to Fidesz's authoritarianism, or even someone seeking help to flee from the oversight of an abusive spouse with personal connections to EU member state surveillance institutions. Not a useful way to catch up with tech - whether or not a better way exists, this law is literally worse than doing nothing.