The British and US Government’s plans to weaken online security are “unworkable” and contribute to “extreme economic harm”, a group of the world’s leading computer experts have said.

Authorities including David Cameron and FBI director James Comey have said that tech companies shouldn’t use end-to-end encryption, which stops messages from being snooped on. Such technology is used in apps like iMessage and WhatsApp, to ensure that messages can't be read as they pass between people.

But a new report from some of the world’s leading computing experts argues that giving intelligence agencies access “will open doors through which criminals and malicious nation states can attack the very individuals law enforcement seeks to defend”. Tech companies have long argued that opening up back doors to surveillance agencies inevitably means that other actors will exploit them, weakening security.

Proposals to give intelligence agencies exceptional access to communications are “unworkable in practice, raise enormous legal and ethical questions, and would undo progress on security at a time when Internet vulnerabilities are causing extreme economic harm”.

“If law enforcement’s keys guaranteed access to everything, an attacker who gained access to these keys would enjoy the same privilege,” the report argues. The British and US governments’ preferred approach would also make such an attack more likely to succeed, they argue, since giving the keys needed to unlock encryption over to spying organisations would make them more likely to be lost.

Whistleblowing controversies of the last decade Show all 12 1 /12 Whistleblowing controversies of the last decade Whistleblowing controversies of the last decade Edward Snowden NSA leak Articles in The Guardian revealed that the US and the UK spied on foreign leaders and diplomats at the 2009 G20 summit. Reuters Whistleblowing controversies of the last decade WikiLeaks' US diplomatic cables leak In 2009, former US soldier Chelsea Manning, downloaded hundreds of thousands of classified US Government documents, and passed them on to Jullian Assange's whistleblowing website WikiLeaks. Among the documents were 250,000 State Department diplomatic cables. One disclosed the close relationship between Russian President Vladimir Putin and then-Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, the Guardian reported. Allegations included "lavish gifts", lucrative energy contracts and the use by Berlusconi of a "shadowy" Russian-speaking Italiango-between. Getty Images Whistleblowing controversies of the last decade WikiLeaks' US diplomatic cables leak WikiLeaks' US diplomatic cables leak: In a revelation which bruised the UK's 'special relationship' with the US, WikiLeaks published conversations by US commanders criticising Britain's military operations in Afghanistan. Getty Images Whistleblowing controversies of the last decade WikiLeaks' US diplomatic cables leak WikiLeaks' US diplomatic cables leak: One document disclosed startling levels of corruption in Afghanistan, including an incident involving the then vice-president, Ahmad Zia Massoud, who was reportedly stopped and questioned in Dubai when he flew into the emirate with $52m in cash. Getty Images Whistleblowing controversies of the last decade WikiLeaks' US diplomatic cables leak Another cable documented fears in Washington over Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme, in a volatile country with a strategic position in the Middle East. PA Whistleblowing controversies of the last decade WikiLeaks' US diplomatic cables leak Day four of the gradual drip of leaks exposed allegations that Russia and its intelligence agencies are using mafia bosses to carry out criminal operations, with one cable reporting that the relationship is so close that the country has become a "virtual mafia state". Getty Images Whistleblowing controversies of the last decade Edward Snowden NSA leak In 2013, The Guardian published classified US National Security Agency (NSA) documents, from a then anonymous whistleblower. Four days later he was exposed as former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. A month after the initial leak, the New York Times allegeded that the NSA received emails, video clips, photos, voice and video calls, social networking details, logins and other data held by a range of US internet firms. Whistleblowing controversies of the last decade Edward Snowden NSA leak Since Snowden revealed that the US had eavesdropped on German Chancellor Angela Merkel's phone, German-US relations have been strained. In May 2014, Mrs Merkel said still had significant differences with the United States over surveillance practices and that it was too soon to return to “business as usual," according to the New York Times. Getty Images Whistleblowing controversies of the last decade Edward Snowden NSA leak On 7 June, The Guardian published the Presidential Policy Directive 20, whcih included a list of potential targets for cyber-attacks by the US Government. Rex Features Whistleblowing controversies of the last decade Samy Kamkar iPhone and Android exposé In April 2014, hacker and researcher Samy Kamkar revealed that Android phones collect user location data every few seconds. Files are then transited to Google several times an hour. Getty Images Whistleblowing controversies of the last decade Samy Kamkar iPhone and Android exposé It is believed Apple and Google are using the data to better target adverts to smartphone users, according to The Guardian. Getty Images Whistleblowing controversies of the last decade Samy Kamkar iPhone and Android exposé The two companies have since justified the collection of data. In a letter to the US congress Apple confirmed it collected the data and said that, in order to be useful, "the databases [of tower and network locations] must be updated continuously". A Google spokesman told the Guardian Android phones explicitly asked to collect anonymous location data when users turned them on. Getty Images

David Cameron and the rest of the Government have long argued that encryption is dangerous — in January, Cameron said that he didn’t want to allow any encrypted communications, and the home secretary Theresa May intends to push through legislation that will force tech companies to make their users’ data available to governments. They say that keeping communications secret helps terrorists, since they can use networks to communicate without surveillance from the authorities.

The new MIT report is named ‘Keys Under Doormats’ and is written by a group of computer scientists many of whom were part of an influential report that helped stop similar legislation being passed at the beginning of the modern internet. They argue that the new challenge is “even greater today than it would have been 20 years ago”.

“In the wake of the growing economic and social cost of the fundamental insecurity of today’s Internet environment, any proposals that alter the security dynamics online should be approached with caution,” they argue in the 26-page report. “. The complexity of today’s Internet environment, with millions of apps and globally connected services, means that new law enforcement requirements are likely to introduce unanticipated, hard to detect security flaws.

“Beyond these and other technical vulnerabilities, the prospect of globally deployed exceptional access systems raises difficult problems about how such an environment would be governed and how to ensure that such systems would respect human rights and the rule of law.”