FIVE EYES ALLIANCE

Subject: International Relations

Context: Five Eyes alliance issued a joint statement in this regard after China imposed national security law in Hong Kong and postponed its Legislative Council Election.

Concept:

• The Five Eyes (FVEY) is an intelligence alliance comprising Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States.
• The origins of the Five Eyes alliance can be traced back to the Atlantic Charter, which was issued in August 1941 to lay out the Allied goals for the post-war world.
• These countries are parties to the multilateral UK-USA Agreement, a treaty for joint cooperation in signals intelligence.
• India is among seven countries to back a UK-led campaign against end-to-end encryption of messages by social media giants such as Facebook, which they say hinder law enforcement by blocking all access to them.
• The UK and India joined this group to ensure they do not blind themselves to illegal activity on their platforms, including child abuse images.
• This marks an expansion of the so-called “Five Eyes” group of nations, a global alliance on intelligence issues, to include India and Japan.

Common Cause

• All members claim that end-to-end encryption policies such as those employed by the social media giant erode the public’s safety online.
• They have made it clear that when end-to-end encryption is applied with no access to content, it severely undermines the ability of companies to take action against illegal activity on their own platforms.
• It also prevents law enforcement investigating and prosecuting the most serious crimes being committed on these services such as online child sexual abuse, grooming and terrorist content.