PARIS: France’s prime minister asked her cabinet to stop using widespread instant messaging apps like WhatsApp, Signal or Telegram and install widely unknown Olvid, a product of Paris’s start-up scene presenting itself as a more secure alternative.
In a ministerial circular, Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne urged ministers and their top staff to deploy the Olvid app on phones and computers, her office told Reuters on Wednesday, confirming French media reports.
Olvid, run by two cryptography researchers and backed by several French tech accelerators, will “replace other instant messaging systems in order to strengthen the security of exchanges that may contain confidential information,” the Prime Minister’s office said.
French magazine Le Point earlier reported the circular announcing the move gives ministers a Dec. 8 deadline to replace their messaging apps, citing the prime minister as saying:
“The main consumer instant messaging applications are playing an increasingly important role in our day-to-day communications. However, these digital tools are not without security flaws, and so cannot guarantee the security of conversations and information shared via them.”
Messaging apps like Meta’s WhatsApp, Telegram and Signal have increasingly become the go-to tool of communication in the inner circles of French politics, and government officials also use the apps when talking to journalists. President Emmanuel Macron is said to be an avid user of messaging apps himself.
On its website, Olvid claims to be “the first and only messaging system” that is not relying on any trusted third parties and centralized servers, while also encrypting user metadata.
Stop using WhatsApp, get Paris-made alternative, French PM tells ministers
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Stop using WhatsApp, get Paris-made alternative, French PM tells ministers
- Messaging apps like Meta’s WhatsApp, Telegram and Signal have increasingly become the go-to tool of communication in the inner circles of French politics
Finland warns end of Ukraine war could bring more Russian spying
- SUPO said that while the Ukraine conflict would probably continue for the “foreseeable future,” its end would free up Russian resources
- “Russian intelligence capacity in Europe has suffered due to the war”
HELSINKI: Finland’s intelligence agency warned Tuesday that Russian spies could boost their efforts to target and destabilize the new NATO member once the Ukraine war ends.
The Finnish Security and Intelligence Service (SUPO) said that while the Ukraine conflict, triggered by Moscow’s full-scale invasion in 2022, would probably continue for the “forseeable future,” its end would free up Russian resources.
Finland, which shares a 1,340-kilometer (830-mile) border with Russia, dropped decades of military non-alignment to join NATO in April 2023 in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine, enraging the Kremlin.
“Russian intelligence capacity in Europe has suffered due to the war, and Russia is preparing to restore this capacity,” SUPO said in a statement.
“Russian intelligence and influencing resources currently tied to Ukraine will become available to be used elsewhere after the war.”
SUPO said Finland would remain of interest to Russia as “a NATO country between the Baltic Sea and the Arctic region.”
If relations between Europe and Russia improve, “the intelligence threat posed by Russia to Finland will become more diverse, with previous operating methods complemented by methods proven effective in the current environment,” Juha Martelius, Director of SUPO, said.
“These include the extensive utilization of proxy actors and intelligence gathering from bases on Russian soil,” he added.
Finland has in the past accused Moscow of “hybrid warfare” in orchestrating a surge of migrants at their shared border — a charge the Kremlin denied.
Last year, western officials accused Russian vessels of sabotaging undersea communications and power cables in several high-profile incidents in the Baltic Sea in recent months.
But SUPO warned about attributing too many incidents to Russia.
“As various events are readily attributed to Russia, Russian influencing against Finland may appear more extensive than it truly is,” it said.
