The exchange of information via encrypted messengers often arouses the interest of the German authorities. But how often they ask for data from the world’s largest provider WhatsApp and other services such as Telegram, the law enforcement authorities remain silent. When netzpolitik.org asked the Federal Criminal Police Office and all 16 state criminal police offices for data queries from WhatsApp and Co., not a single authority replied with concrete figures.
WhatsApp messages are basically end-to-end encrypted, they would be unusable in encrypted form even if the Facebook subsidiary issued them. However, WhatsApp stores some metadata about its users, which can be useful for authorities in investigative proceedings. WhatsApp even has its own way of delivering such data an online requirements system created.
In some cases, however, the company is given access to decrypted message content. This happens when an encrypted message is reported by someone involved in the conversation for violating WhatsApp’s terms and conditions. As most recently the US investigative medium ProPublica reported, such content is viewed by human moderators and passed on to the law enforcement authorities if there are suspicions of illegal activities.
However, metadata often reveals almost as much as the actual content. WhatsApp stores information about the senders and recipients of messages, the time and date and the message size. From this, conclusions can be drawn about the photos, audio files and videos sent. The data make it possible to build communication profiles of individuals.
Only Saxony-Anhalt reveals an order of magnitude
We asked the criminal investigation authorities how often in the past twelve months they had requested information from WhatsApp and other providers such as Telegram, iMessage, Signal or Threema. 14 State Criminal Police Offices (LKA) and the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) replied to the request, but almost all authorities said they either did not know the exact number of queries or did not provide any information “in order not to jeopardize the ability to investigate”.
Some of the authorities referred to the alleged effort to produce precise information on the number of data queries. For example, the LKA Berlin wrote that this “could only be done with a disproportionately extensive consideration of individual cases.” For an answer, all procedures would have to be viewed manually, according to the LKA Saxony. Only the State Criminal Police Office of Saxony-Anhalt replied to netzpolitik.org that it had made “single-digit” inquiries via WhatsApp’s online request system.
Answers to our question about the legal basis of such queries show how much German authorities depend on the cooperation of WhatsApp. “Such messenger services are usually characterized by the fact that they do not save relevant data in Germany, but usually in the USA,” the Saxon authority replied. Formal information must therefore be provided via mutual assistance agreements. “Since this route is very resource-intensive and time-consuming, numerous providers offer voluntary cooperation with the police authorities.”
That means: In practice, law enforcement authorities like to knock on WhatsApp and Co. and ask the providers to provide data voluntarily – and without seeking legal assistance. Because these would first have to be checked by the US judiciary, and an answer often takes months.
The Facebook group did not want to reveal how many inquiries WhatsApp received from German law enforcement authorities at the request of netzpolitik.org.
Little information from other messengers
While WhatsApp, the most frequently used messenger service, could be a rich source of data for German authorities, things are more difficult with some other providers. None of the investigated criminal investigation offices answered our question about data queries from iMessage, Skype, Telegram, Signal or Threema with concrete information.
For some of the services it is also unclear how much sense this would have. Signal and Threema are considered to be very privacy-friendly and advertise that they store almost no metadata – they can therefore reveal little about their users.
Microsoft grants limited insight into inquiries from authorities. Like WhatsApp, the parent company of Skype operates a portal through which law enforcement authorities can make inquiries. Between July and December 2020, there were almost 5,000 inquiries from German authorities for user data for Microsoft products, including Skype. The group writes that in one Report on law enforcement inquiries. Accordingly, Microsoft released data in less than half of the cases.
It looks similarly fuzzy with Apple, which operates iMessage. The company’s transparency reports do not reveal how many official inquiries specifically refer to the messenger service. In the first half of 2020, Apple had over 500 inquiries from Germany about iCloud accounts received, in 77 percent of the cases the requests were granted, can be seen from the statistics.
Access also via tricks and Trojans
On the other hand, German authorities have great difficulties with Telegram, the Federal Criminal Police Office complains about this again and again. Because Telegram has so far largely refused state intervention and the deletion of content. “The prosecution of criminal offenses on platforms like Telegram is fundamentally difficult,” wrote the BKA in response to our request. Not only is it apparently difficult for German authorities to get data on Telegram users. Experience has shown that the messenger service blocks suggestions for deleting right-wing extremist content.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that data is safe with Telegram. In contrast to WhatsApp, messages in group chats are not end-to-end encrypted by default; users must first actively set this. Also wakes up Telegram’s encryption technology is always skeptical.
Even if the provider refuses to cooperate with German authorities, they might be able to access other means. Through the (recently expanded) use of state Trojans, German authorities can hack entire devices in a targeted manner and access news content there. According to the latest statistics from the Federal Office of Justice, several dozen Trojan horse deployments were approved by German authorities in 2019. Authorities also have ways of gaining access to messenger content on WhatsApp or Telegram.
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