Going dark? Analysing the impact of end-to-end encryption on the outcome of Dutch criminal court cases
This addresses the 'going dark' debate by providing empirical evidence on E2EE's impact on prosecution outcomes, though it is incremental as it focuses on court data without new methods.
The study analyzed Dutch court data to assess the impact of end-to-end encryption (E2EE) on criminal convictions, finding that courts were as successful in convicting offenders using E2EE as those not using it, though it could not evaluate effects on investigations.
Law enforcement agencies struggle with criminals using to end-to-end encryption (E2EE). A recent policy paper states: "while encryption is vital and privacy and cyber security must be protected, that should not come at the expense of wholly precluding law enforcement". The main argument is that E2EE hampers attribution and prosecution of criminals who rely on encrypted communication - ranging from drug syndicates to child sexual abuse material (CSAM) platforms. This statement - in policy circles dubbed 'going dark' - is not yet supported by empirical evidence. That is why, in our work, we analyse public court data from the Netherlands to show to what extent law enforcement agencies and the public prosecution service are impacted by the use of E2EE in bringing cases to court and their outcome. Our results show that Dutch courts appear to be as successful in convicting offenders who rely on E2EE as those who do not. Our data does not permit us to draw conclusions on the effect of E2EE on criminal investigations.