EU interior ministers welcome mandatory chat control for all smartphones

17 comments
  1. >The EU Commission wants all smartphones to search messages and photos for allegedly suspicious content before they are sent via encrypted messaging services. Unencrypted communications are to be screened by the provider. If the algorithm detects suspicious content, a report would automatically be sent to the police. The stated purpose is the search for child pornography. However, according to the Swiss Federal Police, 86% of the personal messages and photos reported by the error-prone algorithms used so far only by US providers are not criminally relevant.

  2. “Opportunity passes”, mandatory chat controls. Yep, nothing to see here we’re certainly not heading for totalitarian state.

  3. >Background: The EU Commission wants all smartphones to search messages and photos for allegedly suspicious content before they are sent via encrypted messaging services. Unencrypted communications are to be screened by the provider. If the algorithm detects suspicious content, a report would automatically be sent to the police. The stated purpose is the search for child pornography. However, according to the Swiss Federal Police, 86% of the personal messages and photos reported by the error-prone algorithms used so far only by US providers are not criminally relevant.

    Seems technological hard, if not plain crazy.

    I guess it can be compared to a known database, but even that could be worked around.

  4. As an American, it’s painful for me to read about proposals like this, because usual the EU provides more freedoms and protections for workers and consumers than we do. How likely is this to pass without being watered down or destroyed later in European courts in the future? I was under the impression that mandatory monitoring of all communications in this way was illegal in the EU. It hardly seems like automated algorithmic reporting to police would be good for either citizens or the police.

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