European governments are increasingly turning to open standards, alternatives to the end-to-end encrypted messaging and collaboration services dominated by WhatsApp and Microsoft Teams.
The open network messaging architecture known as Matrix is attracting interest from European governments looking for “sovereign” alternatives to the encrypted collaboration and messaging tools supplied by big US tech companies.
Matrix The goal was to create an open messaging standard that would allow people to communicate no matter what messaging service they use, much in the same way that people can send email to anyone, no matter what email provider they use.
The German armed forces and the French government have hundreds of thousands of civil servants using messaging technology based on Matrix.
Swiss Post used this technology to create an encrypted messaging service for email users, and other projects are currently underway. SwedenEuropean Commission and the Netherlands.
Matthew Hodgson co-founded Matrix as a non-profit open source project to develop technical standards for secure decentralized messaging, video and voice services in 2014.
When he's not working at Matrix, Hodgson is CEO of Element, which provides encrypted communications services based on the Matrix protocol to France, NATO and other government organizations.
Risk of US sanctions
He says European governments are showing growing interest in using open source IT as a way to reduce their dependence on US big tech suppliers and create their own sovereign alternatives in the face of growing geopolitical uncertainty.
The US decision to impose sanctions against the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague in February 2025 showed that sovereign states can no longer assume that cloud-based IT services provided by Microsoft and other big technology companies are immune to global politics.
The sanctions affected American suppliers who provide the court with “financial, material or technological support“, which prompted the ICC, which is largely dependent on Microsoft, to try negotiate new IT contracts with other suppliers outside the US.
“We have seen firsthand that big US tech companies are not reliable partners, and as a matter of common sense, your country's operational dependence on another country is a crazy risk,” Hodgson said.
“SignalgateIn April, it was revealed that US National Security Adviser Mike Waltz accidentally included a journalist in a secret group discussion on the Signal-based messaging service.
The incident has led to renewed concerns about the spread of shadow communications technologies among governments.
Encryption think twice
However, the same European governments that advocate the development of sovereign encrypted messaging services also resist the spread of end-to-end encryption.
This happens through mechanisms such as Chat managementA European proposal to require technology companies to scan messages for illegal content before encrypting them has the unintended consequence of undermining the security of communications.
“It's clear that different factions and governments are pulling in different directions,” Hodgson said. “I think chat control arises from a curious combination of ignorance and political skill to score points.”
“My hope is that we will eventually end up in a large global peer-to-peer network with no servers that cannot be compromised, undermined, tracked or otherwise disabled.”
Matthew Hodgson, “Element”
In the UK The Ministry of Internal Affairs needed Apple provide law enforcement and intelligence agencies with the ability to access encrypted data, backup copies of which were stored by UK citizens in the Apple iCloud service.
Hodgson says if the Home Office issues a similar order against Element, it will have no choice but to stop providing its services in the UK or in Europe if Chat Control is ever introduced.
The result won't be a disappearance of encrypted messaging apps, Hodgson said, but rather a proliferation of homegrown encryption apps as people look for ways to preserve their privacy.
Consider the crypto wars of the 1990s, when the US government sought to control and limit the spread of encryption technology. These efforts were thwarted by Phil Zimmerman, who developed the PGP encryption software.
Although the distribution of PGP was technically illegal, “mysteriously,” Hodgson said, “everyone was using it.”
“Even if Element is unable to publish apps in European app stores because of Chat Control, I strongly suspect that many more people will go and publish their own apps and make them available somehow,” he added.
No single point of attack
One of the advantages of Matrix as a communications standard is its decentralization. This means that there is no single point of attack that would allow hackers to gain access to the entire network.
Hodgson compares this to Signal, an encrypted messaging service widely used by journalists and human rights activists, which poses a big target for hackers.
“Signal has very good encryption and we use their encryption, so we owe a lot to them,” he said. “On the other hand, if you are a motivated villain, with Signal there is only one application and one instance that you will have to compromise.”
Another advantage of Matrix is its interoperability, which means that one messaging platform built on Matrix should be able to interoperate with another.
For example, if NATO were to deploy Matrix-based communications, it would make sense for NATO forces to use encrypted Matrix-based messengers to communicate with each other.
France and Germany are believed to be discussing the possibility of exchanging messages between the two countries.
Matrix is “at least as good as WhatsApp”
Matrix-based apps have proven to be less user-friendly and less easy to set up than alternatives like Signal and WhatsApp, but that's starting to change. Hodgson says there are plenty of “really mature glossy apps” that are at least as good.
It takes longer to achieve this because a decentralized approach is always more difficult than a centralized one—at least 10 times more difficult, he says.
Funding has also been an issue, as some governments deploying the Matrix open network protocol as part of critical national infrastructure have not chosen to support Matrix financially.
Hodgson envisioned that as more governments and corporations began using the Matrix, the more money would be available for development.
Instead, funding often went to systems integrators hired by governments to deploy Matrix, rather than Matrix itself.
Changing approach to fundraising
Element largely funded the development of Matrix until 2023, but was forced to “aggressively change course” when funds to support protocol development did not materialize.
Today, Matrix relies on membership program funding and is also considering applying for grants while expanding its membership base.
“We're getting there now and I'm hopeful that in the next few months we'll come out the other side and really be able to start accelerating development again,” he said.
Hodgson's philosophy is that features designed to empower Matrix users should be available for free, but features that empower businesses should be paid for.
Paid services include antivirus, information classification labels, and measures to prevent accidentally including the wrong people in chats.
People can subscribe to Matrix without setting up their own server, but Matrix deployment may become even easier in the future. The Dutch government has agreed to fund the development of a peer-to-peer version of Matrix, which completely eliminates the need for a server.
Meanwhile, work is underway with technology partners to combat spam messages, AI junk and propaganda generated by botnets, which are growing as Matrix deployments expand.
“My hope is that we will eventually end up with a large global peer-to-peer network with no servers that cannot be compromised, undermined, tracked or otherwise destroyed,” Hodgson said.
