The Commission can only act within the limits of the powers conferred on it by the Treaty. The Community has a clear competence in the field of data protection and in research and technological development. The Union has competencies under the so-called third pillar framework with regard to law enforcement and fight against crime. National security questions belong to the exclusive competence of the Member States. Exploiting the full potential of information technology and Internet are key elements in achieving this goal.
Electronic communications play an increasingly important role in everyday life of European citizens.
Well functioning electronic communications infrastructure has become crucial for our economies. A pre-condition for achieving the Lisbon targets is that citizens and enterprises can trust in electronic communications. A key tool to secure the confidentiality of electronic communications is encryption, or cryptography. Encryption means the transformation of data into a form unreadable by anyone without a decryption key. When the European Parliament considered the issue of interception of telecommunications in 1998, its resolution underlined the importance of encryption.