The EU Council has now passed a 4th term without passing its controversial message-scanning proposal. The just-concluded Belgian Presidency failed to broker a deal that would push forward this regulation, which has now been debated in the EU for more than two years. For all those who have reached...

The EU Council has now passed a 4th term without passing its controversial message-scanning proposal. The just-concluded Belgian Presidency failed to broker a deal that would push forward this regulation, which has now been debated in the EU for more than two years.

For all those who have reached out to sign the “Don’t Scan Me” petition, thank you—your voice is being heard. News reports indicate the sponsors of this flawed proposal withdrew it because they couldn’t get a majority of member states to support it.

Now, it’s time to stop attempting to compromise encryption in the name of public safety. EFF has opposed this legislation from the start. Today, we’ve published a statement, along with EU civil society groups, explaining why this flawed proposal should be withdrawn.

The scanning proposal would create “detection orders” that allow for messages, files, and photos from hundreds of millions of users around the world to be compared to government databases of child abuse images. At some points during the debate, EU officials even suggested using AI to scan text conversations and predict who would engage in child abuse. That’s one of the reasons why some opponents have labeled the proposal “chat control.”

There’s scant public support for government file-scanning systems that break encryption. Nor is there support in EU law. People who need secure communications the most—lawyers, journalists, human rights workers, political dissidents, and oppressed minorities—will be the most affected by such invasive systems. Another group harmed would be those whom the EU’s proposal claims to be helping—abused and at-risk children, who need to securely communicate with trusted adults in order to seek help.

The right to have a private conversation, online or offline, is a bedrock human rights principle. When surveillance is used as an investigation technique, it must be targeted and coupled with strong judicial oversight. In the coming EU council presidency, which will be led by Hungary, leaders should drop this flawed message-scanning proposal and focus on law enforcement strategies that respect peoples’ privacy and security.

Further reading:

      • @CosmicomicalEnglish
        6•5 months ago

        As if they ever cared about children

    • @NOT_RICKEnglish
      52•5 months ago

      I’d expect a fellow programmer to understand why these kinds of proposals are foolish.

    • @ZakEnglish
      28•5 months ago

      I’m mostly against downvoting without explanation, so here it is: expressing this sentiment in this community without a really solid explanation of why you think it would actually help seems like trolling.

    • @[email protected]English
      27•5 months ago

      The same kids who need a secure line of communication with authorities and aid workers and councilors and places to report the abuse and… you get the idea. Those kids would NOT have liked this at all.

      • @[email protected]English
        17•5 months ago

        Or like when Republicans in the US decided to start outing kids because they confided in a teacher. The right wing in the EU would be able to say “being gay or trans is a mental illness, for their own safety we are going to read their texts and put them in a mental hospital if they mention it to anyone”.