IATE Term of the Week: End-to-end encryption

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This June the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs proposed an amendment that would enforce end-to-end encryption on all digital communications and forbid backdoors that enable law enforcement to access private message data. In the context of the recent cyber-attacks and this ongoing proposal for regulation, the termend-to-end encryptionwas chosen as this week’s IATE Term of the Week.

encryption2

According to the amendment of the text proposed by the European Commission:

The providers of electronic communications services shall ensure that there is sufficient protection in place against unauthorised access or alterations to the electronic communications data, and that the confidentiality and safety of the transmission are also guaranteed by the nature of the means of transmission used or by state-of-the-art end-to-end encryption of the electronic communications data.

Techopedia.com define end-to-end encryption (E2EE) as a method used for securing encrypted data while it is moving from the source to the destination. Encrypt is explained in Merriam-Webster online dictionary as the act of changing (information) from one form to another especially to hide its meaning. This word first entered the English vocabulary recently, in 1950, and the noun encryption followed about a decade later. It is interesting to point out that this verb was formed from the noun cryptogram, which means “a message written in code.”  Although cryptogram came to English from French, it is based on the Greek verb meaning “to hide.”

This is an example of the magic of terminology! Terms which date thousands of years ago can still be used to explain, describe or define concepts of the present.

Here you can see the entry for end-to-end encryption in IATE:

end-to-end encryption IATE snip

[su_note note_color=”#dcea0f”][su_button url=”http://termcoord.eu/contribute-to-iate/” style=”flat”]Contribute to IATE![/su_button] We would appreciate your contribution to update this term in your language. An IATE terminologist of the relevant language will be in charge of the validation of contributions and, thus, a delay is to be expected.[/su_note]

IATE_term_of_the_week_End-to-end-encryption

We suggest that you check some previous IATE Terms of the Week and IATE projects that relate to this topic:

We also encourage you to check related glossaries through our Glossary Links tool and through our recently-updated EU Glossaries‘ list!

Enjoy terminology learning and have a nice weekend!


Written by Katerina PalamiotiTranslator, Social Media and Content Manager, Communication Trainee and Foodie at the Terminology Coordination Unit of the European Parliament.

Sources:

  • Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs,  DRAFT EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT LEGISLATIVE RESOLUTION on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council concerning the respect for private life and the protection of personal data in electronic communications and repealing Directive 2002/58/EC (Regulation on Privacy and Electronic Communications) (COM(2017)0010 – C8-0009/2017 – 2017/0003(COD)) Available at: http://bit.ly/2t8EbTj (Accessed: 29/06/2017)
  • Techopedia.com, End-to-End Encryption (E2EE) Available at: http://bit.ly/2txCdi2 (Accessed: 29/06/2017)
  • Merriam-Webster online dictionary, Encrypt: The announcement of changes to WhatsApp encryption sent people to the dictionary. Available at: http://bit.ly/2sYFxBy (Accessed: 29/06/2017)