Lads how do we feel about this EU chat control that the government are supporting? Sounds very dystopian in my opinion. Can we do anything to stop it?

by buzzbaron

49 comments

  1. [https://fightchatcontrol.eu/](https://fightchatcontrol.eu/)
    *Every photo, every message, every file you send will be automatically scanned—without your consent or suspicion. This is not about catching criminals. It is mass surveillance imposed on all 450 million citizens of the European Union.*

  2. Concerned. A step towards authoritarianism. Similar to that hate speech bill

  3. I think it’s just a thinly veiled attempt to get more information from us disgused as protecting children.

  4. Literally no one in the real world has brought this in conversation.

    Overreach or authoritarian aside, I’d say most people don’t give a shit.

  6. Surely it would be better to teach children very seriously in school about love-bombing and gaslighting and online risks, so they’re not at risk from predators (whether online or offline).

  7. They’ll push it through because it’s supposed to catch kiddy fiddlers …………. right. Because kiddy fiddlers, possibly the slyest of all cunts, aren’t just going to use file sharing services or whatever else instead. The most prolific kiddy fiddlers are probably already doing that as it is. They’re not going to stop being kiddy fiddlers anyway, I am certain of that. And sure what happens to kiddy fiddlers in this country when they are caught ? Sweet fuck all.

    Meanwhile *everyone’s* telecommunications privacy has been eroded. And surely the EU or individual member states would never abuse such access. Right ?

  8. Unnessry and Concerning. The gaurds have shown before they can’t be trusted with sensitive materials, and I don’t think giving them so much power will make that any better. Authoritarianism is creeping into Europe.

  10. Email all our mep’s let them know we don’t want to live in a dystopia. My understanding is too that this bill goes against some constitutional protections in eu countries like Spain. So hopefully it will be amended or blocked.

  11. Seems draconian. Where’s the proposal to stop actual child abuse from happening rather than trawling through people’s emails and texts without their consent?

  12. Back to letters I guess.

    Things like this only drive technology on. Someone will come out with a different encryption and way to bypass the whole thing.

  13. It’s a terrible piece of legislation and not the direction the EU should be going in.

  14. Not too bothered about it really. Depends on the implementation. If we were in a place like the USA, I’d be worried, but the structure and foundation of the EU, as well as Ireland’s own constitution and laws, make it much less of an issue for me. Our courts have no issue throwing out laws that go too far.

    Now if they were to try and expand it to include copyright or something, I’d have an issue.

  15. What about legally protected chats between yourself and your legal team?

  16. There’s no evidence that our government are supporting it.

    When it comes down to a vote, it’s unlikely that it’ll go through, but you can email your MEP to make it clear that you don’t support it and shouldn’t support it.

  17. Yea major bs and very dystopian I agree, nothing to do with protecting children and all to do with tracking people and collecting info.

  18. I thought GDPR ensured my right to restrict the processing of my data? Surely this is a breach of GDPR?

  19. Email your TDs and EU TDs.

    I’ve done it 3 times so far, only 2 replies.

  20. Extremely dystopian and won’t achieve it’s stated goal. Which makes me believe this is more about mass surveillance.

    They will want to ban VPN’s next.

  22. Not a fan at all. Am going to write to my local TD about it

  24. I’d almost go so far as to say that this sort of thing makes Brexit look like a great idea. It’s properly intrusive and dystopian. It’d be one thing if it was going to lead to better law enforcement but it’s ultimately about building a law that restricts but doesn’t protect. Here in the UK, the Brits are pushing on with facial recognition software and cameras so there’s that as well.

    >”Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”

    >Benjamin Franklin.

  25. It’s not possible share any opinion or objective view on this here.

    Edit: Watch the downvotes come flooding in.

  26. I sent an email to them a couple years ago when they first mentioned this and essentially my argument boiled down to this;

    The EU is trying to become the world’s largest collector and distributer of child porn in the world. Regardless of my personal privacy, the privacy of my children is being eroded.

    The private photos my wife and I hold in shared albums over the last 10 years and three kids will now be looked into and catalogued by the government. That means any photos of my kids in the bath as babies, or swimming on holiday etc etc are now being indexed and are accessible.
    The government absolutely cannot guarantee the security of these, and central accessibility to it all means a much much higher risk of bad actors gaining access.

    All this means that the EU is now going to be collecting and potentially distributing the largest collection of illicit material in the world.

    Along with that, is huge concerns over whether someone is going to be interested in why I have a nude baby pic on my cloud, or if that dark humour joke I made privately to a friend is only a joke or a threat.

    I could honestly speak all day about how bad an idea this is, and I’ve already started to mitigate the risks in case this does happen.

    It’s Orwellian in an unprecedented way, and it absolutely needs to be stopped.

  27. It’s scary enough as it is with the current ppl in charge. Now, imagine how devastating this regulation will be when the EU is being run by a majority far-right.

  28. If it requires us to amend our constitution then it need to be a referendum. These things are always watered down considerably anyways. 

  29. Actual gangs of terrorists and nonces tend to be quite organized. It takes a one line script to ssh tunnel to some IP address where they can swap CSAM and bomb designs to their twisted hearts content. This is about mass surveillence of the law abiding population.

  30. Not happy about it but if there’s one thing I’ve learned about this world is that it doesn’t seem to matter what the general people think or want, only what’s best for out poxy capitalist society. There has to be a better system and solution to all our problems, but that will probably cost money where this will probably make another small amount of people rich. It’s fucking depressing that or world cares more about a bottom line instead of what would actually make our society better.

  32. If anything I’m surprised it hasn’t happened sooner.

    People generally don’t care about things like privacy and free speech, and you see it all the time with how hard people advocate for things like hate speech laws and online censorship.

    This is just a natural continuation of this line of thinking. I have no doubt whatsoever that measures like this are going to be enacted in basically all western countries over the coming years and decades.

  33. I go to the pub and talk to the auld pintman. Surely they get a tad bit lost about my LLM shit talking but it’s grand.

  34. Don’t worry lads the guards don’t have the technology or the manpower to be surveilling everyone’s friend/porn/death video WhatsApp groups

  35. Some years ago I sadly resigned myself to accept that over time the government is going to want to surveill us more and more. It’s true as night follows day that if the technology exists for the the government to get a bit more nosy, then they will take advantage of it. 

    My attitude is to simply accept it it’s going to happen and I as an individual will opt-out of being surveilled. Technology wise the cat is out of the bag, they can legislate for all the big internet platforms to analyse my communications, but I can switch to a different platform they have no control over. There are so many options out there to protect yourself from surveillance that no government will ever be able to control or intercept. 

    This is all about normalizing everyday surveillance, I don’t for a minute accept the arguments that it’s about protecting children or preventing crime. The reality is that any savvy criminal will already be using secure platforms to communicate, this legislation won’t help prevent serious crime in any meaningful way. 

  36. And they wonder why the far right are rising in popularity across Europe, I’m not far right or do I support them but if I have a choice between them or politicians that want erase my right to privacy and freedom of speech and exclude themselves from the same, then I think I’d leaning 1 way more than the other.
    This behavior by government’s is what resulted in Trump coming to power.
    Stupid decisions equal stupid results.

  38. For the proposal to pass in the Council, it needs a qualified majority, which seems unlikely unless the scanning provisions are drastically changed.

    Then you also have GDPR laws…
    Frankly, I don’t know how this would even work

  39. Criminals have been using open-source encryption that has been around for decades…

  41. It would have to breach some unenumerated right in the constitution.
    They aren’t absolute rights as they’d have to way the public interest vs the breach of the right.

    I dont agree with it but I get… I mean the US and China have both been doing this for over a decade… in the US over 2 decades.

    It would be a strong tool to prevent various crimes, catch pedo rings, prevent espionage and corruption but politicians getting an exemption defeats the point.

    So if it includes politicians I would begrudgingly be ok but if politicians get an exemption then screw that shit it shouldn’t be one rule for me another for thee.

  42. We can write to our TDs.

    Probably best to wait and see what exact proposals are brought forward. Every time this kind of thing has been proposed it’s failed in the face of the technical realities.

    So right now it’s hard to say what concrete proposals will emerge from Denmark’s latest crusade.

  43. Gonna get downvoted but something like this is inevitable and essential.

    Anybody with half a brain can see that we benefit from being in a strong Europe. The internet is used more and more in hybrid warfare to stir up division and hatred and destabilize European countries and alliances. Look at the Brexit movement and the amount of external actors that pushed that. We are already seeing some of that lunacy in other member states.

    Every country is facing this issue now, especially with the rise of AI. They are all looking for security solutions because it is a existential threat.

  44. Do anything to stop it? Lobby for the rules to also apply to politicians along with regular spot checks at random intervals on their personal encrypted communications. – Pretty sure it would be dead in the water if the politicians thought it also applied to them.

  45. I used that Danish site to email my own thoughts against chat control 2.0 to all our govt meps. It took 5 mins to write the email and another 3 mins to send it to each mep.

    It’s such a terrible idea. It can’t even work to protect anyone from criminals or pedos or whatever the excuse is. It’s simply mass automated surveillance.

  46. Bad people doing bad things requires good people to make bad laws to try and stop it.

    They are damned if they do and damned if they don’t.

    I support it.

    Downvote away!

  47. How the heck are we going to know that our identities are going to be protected? I mean Ireland does have a habit of paying peanuts and getting monkeys. Good luck trying to get that to work within the IT world and the internet.

  49. It’s a line so red that I–a lifelong EU supporter–will begin to advocate for Irexit.

    I will do everything I can to break such a law and protect myself, and help and encourage others to do so too.

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