French Prime Minister François Bayrou has told the public sector they should be ‘strengthening the security of electronic communications’ by using the home-grown Tchap instant messaging system. Tchap was launched in 2020 after being developed in-house by the French government. The creation of a sovereign encrypted messaging tool means France can try to protect its secrets without the risk of backdoors being inserted by foreign tech companies. Tchap has apps for both phones and computers, and it allows users to securely invite external partners to communicate through Tchap.
In his missive, which was dated July 25, Bayrou warns that…
Les agents publics sont exposés à un risque croissant d’interception de leurs communications électroniques, mettant en péril la confidentialité de leurs échanges. En plus de ce risque, ils sont confrontés à un nombre croissant de cyberattaques. Outre les atteintes à la vie privée qu’elles représentent souvent, ces attaques constituent aujourd’hui une menace de premier ordre quant à la nécessité de garantir la confidentialité et l’intégrité de l’ensemble de ces échanges.
Public officials are exposed to a growing risk of having their electronic communications intercepted, jeopardizing the confidentiality of their exchanges. In addition to this risk, they are facing a growing number of cyberattacks. In addition to the privacy violations they often represent, these attacks now pose a major threat to the need to guarantee the confidentiality and integrity of all these exchanges.
Bayrou claims that over 300,000 officials already use Tchap on a regular basis. Nevertheless, there is always a risk that some people will adopt bad habits, as best exemplified by American leaders sharing secrets about a military operation with a journalist who was invited to join their group chat on Signal. Bayrou correctly pointed out that some messaging services cannot be trusted because foreign governments will use them for espionage.
En effet, certaines messageries commerciales dites sécurisées sont sous l’influence de pays étrangers, qui sont susceptibles de mettre en œuvre des mesures techniques ou juridiques pour accéder aux communications échangées.
Indeed, certain so-called secure commercial messaging systems are under the influence of foreign countries, which are likely to implement technical or legal measures to access the communications exchanged.
Ministers were instructed to ‘raise awareness’ within their teams of the communications security issues highlighted by Bayrou. This is occurring alongside a transition from Olvid, an alternative secure comms application that was recommended by previous Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne. Adherence to Bayrou’s instructions is expected from September 1.
There is an endless tension between governments wanting to spy on people by undermining the encryption of messaging services and governments being wary that their own messages will be intercepted. This encourages hypocrisy. Criminals choose encrypted comms for obvious reasons, and there can be arguments about how best to protect the public without creating mechanisms that authoritarians will use to spy on journalists and rival politicians. These arguments were rekindled when France arrested Pavel Durov, the founder and CEO of Telegram, last year. Sadly, less attention is directed to the reckless exchange of private information on messaging apps because people cannot be bothered to safeguard it properly, as demonstrated by staff in the British National Health Service routinely sharing confidential patient information via WhatsApp.
Bayrou’s circular about the use of Tchap can be seen here.
