{"id":462196,"date":"2025-09-30T04:43:24","date_gmt":"2025-09-30T04:43:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/462196\/"},"modified":"2025-09-30T04:43:24","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T04:43:24","slug":"chat-control-is-back-on-the-menu-in-the-eu-it-still-must-be-stopped","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/462196\/","title":{"rendered":"Chat Control Is Back on the Menu in the EU. It Still Must Be Stopped"},"content":{"rendered":"

The European Union Council is once again debating<\/a> its controversial message scanning proposal, aka \u201cChat Control,\u201d that would lead to the scanning of private conversations of billions of people. <\/p>\n

Chat Control, which EFF has strongly opposed<\/a> since it was first introduced<\/a> in 2022, keeps being mildly tweaked and pushed by one Council presidency after another.<\/p>\n

Chat Control is a dangerous legislative proposal that would make it mandatory for service providers, including end-to-end encrypted communication and storage services, to scan all communications and files to detect \u201cabusive material.\u201d This would happen through a method called client-side scanning, which scans for specific content on a device before it\u2019s sent. In practice, Chat Control is chat surveillance and functions by having access to everything on a device with indiscriminate monitoring of everything. In a memo, the Danish Presidency claimed this does not break end-to-end encryption<\/a>. <\/p>\n

This is absurd. <\/p>\n

We have written extensively that client-side scanning fundamentally undermines end-to-end encryption<\/a>, and obliterates our right to private spaces. If the government has access to one of the \u201cends\u201d of an end-to-end encrypted communication, that communication is no longer safe and secure. Pursuing this approach is dangerous for everyone, but is especially perilous for journalists, whistleblowers, activists, lawyers, and human rights workers. <\/p>\n

If passed, Chat Control would undermine the privacy promises of end-to-end encrypted communication tools, like Signal and WhatsApp. The proposal is so dangerous that Signal has stated it would pull its app out of the EU<\/a> if Chat Control is passed. Proponents even seem to realize how dangerous this is, because state communications are exempt from this scanning<\/a> in the latest compromise proposal.<\/p>\n

This doesn\u2019t just affect people in the EU, it affects everyone around the world, including in the United States. If platforms decide to stay in the EU, they would be forced to scan the conversation of everyone in the EU. If you\u2019re not in the EU, but you chat with someone who is, then your privacy is compromised too. Passing this proposal would pave the way for authoritarian and tyrannical governments around the world to follow suit with their own demands for access to encrypted communication apps.<\/p>\n

Even if you take it in good faith that the government would never do anything wrong with this power, events like Salt Typhoon show<\/a> there\u2019s no such thing as a system that\u2019s only for the \u201cgood guys.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite strong opposition, Denmark is pushing forward and taking its current proposal<\/a> to the Justice and Home Affairs Council meeting on October 14th. <\/p>\n

We urge the Danish Presidency to drop its push for scanning our private communication and consider fundamental rights concerns. Any draft that compromises end-to-end encryption and permits scanning of our private communication should be blocked or voted down.<\/p>\n

Phones and laptops must work for the users who own them, not act as \u201cbugs in our pockets<\/a>\u201d in the service of governments, foreign or domestic. The mass scanning of everything on our devices is invasive, untenable, and must be rejected.<\/p>\n

Further reading:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The European Union Council is once again debating its controversial message scanning proposal, aka \u201cChat Control,\u201d that would…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":462197,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[2000,299,5187,1699],"class_list":{"0":"post-462196","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-european","11":"tag-european-union"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115291423074044924","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=462196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462196\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/462197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=462196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=462196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=462196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}