Hundreds of academics and engineers and non-profit organizations such as Reporters Without Borders, as well as the Council of Europe, believe that the Child Sexual Abuse Regulation (CSAR) would mean sacrificing confidentiality on the internet, and that this price is unaffordable for democracies.
The European Data Protection Supervisor, who is preparing a statement on this for late October, has said that it could become the basis for the de facto widespread and indiscriminate scanning of all EU communications. The proposed regulation, often referred to by critics as Chat Control, holds companies that provide communication services responsible for ensuring that unlawful material does not circulate online. If, after undergoing a risk assessment, it is determined that they are a channel for pedophiles, these services will have to implement automatic screening.
The mastermind behind the billboards and newspaper exhortations calling on Apple to detect pedophile material on iCloud is, reportedly, a non-profit organization called Heat Initiative, which is part of a crusade against the encryption of communications known in the U.S. as Crypto Wars. This movement has gone from fighting against terrorism to combating the spread of online child pornography to request the end of encrypted messages, the last great pocket of privacy left on the internet. “It is significant that the U.S., the European Union and the United Kingdom are simultaneously processing regulations that, in practice, will curtail encrypted communications. It seems like a coordinated effort,” says Diego Naranjo, head of public policies at the digital rights non-profit EDRi.
The parliament elects the commission president, then vets the commissioners proposed by the president they just elected, then approves of the commission as a whole. Nothing whatsoever is happening there without the parliament.
That’s bog-standard for a parliamentary system. What’s not that standard, but also not unheard of, is that the head of the executive is proposed by another body, in the EU’s case the council. Which in itself is elected as all member state’s governments are elected.
I get that there’s gripes about the Spitzenkandidat putsch failing, originally S&D and EPP (at least, I think there were others) said “Council, you can propose any candidate you want but we’re only going to elect our candidates”, but ultimately they did not have enough seats to actually force the issue. But honestly would Weber really have been better, he’s a Bavarian, one fault that vdL does not have.
The reason the council proposed vdL is, more or less, Germany saying “hey it’s our turn” (last German in the post was Hallstein, 58-67, both the commission and parliament predate the EU), and as we had a CDU government back then with a domestically unpopular vdL who didn’t even consider being offloaded to the EU a demotion but promotion she was the obvious choice.
These ‘political games’ about candidates are bad and it’s not (only) her to blame for, so far I agree. What I criticize is her entire behaviour, from hiding her professional communications to spending taxpayers’ money for her advisors to not even meeting with and listening to people with an opinion other than her own (in that case, not even with victims of sexual abuse). This is not what is expected in a democracy.
In a democarcy, a people gets the government it deserves.
And, well, as said, it could be worse: We could have had a Bavarian Commission President. Imagine Scheuer in that position.