Your Encryption Keys Are in Virginia: On BitLocker, the FBI, and Why European Universities Need Sovereign Software
Microsoft confirmed this week that it hands BitLocker encryption keys to the FBI on receipt of a valid legal order. Windows 11 uploads them to your Microsoft account by default, without asking. For European universities that handle research data, student records, and HR information under GDPR, this is not an abstract concern. It is a structural problem. The answer is not a technical workaround. It is sovereign, publicly funded, openly licensed software — and a principle that the EU has articulated but not consistently practised: public money, public code.