Anti-NSA email service to add thick security layer

Amid new revelations that the CIA spent years trying to hack iPhone and iPad security, the German government is going in a markedly different direction.

A German government-backed email service that grew out of uproar over NSA spying will add an additional layer of security starting in April, officials announced.

{mosads}De-Mail will add end-to-end encryption based on the Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) system, an industry standard for secure email. PGP will be available as a browser plugin for Chrome and Firefox users who are also De-Mail account holders.

“Germany wants to take a leading role in the use of digital services,” Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière said, according to The Associated Press. “Encryption is an important precondition for this.”

The announcement points to the vast difference in perspective on email encryption between the U.S. and German governments.

U.S. leaders have opposed end-to-end encryption, because it could disrupt law enforcement’s ability to monitor emails as part of criminal and terrorism investigations.

The debate is much more sensitive in Germany given the country’s history of surveillance under Nazism and communism.

A spokesman for the German Interior Ministry said security services would be able to monitor emails when necessary by intercepting them prior to encryption or after decryption.

De-Mail is used by an increasing number of German government agencies as well as local authorities. It is available to anyone who lives in Germany.