Demonstrating that liberty and human rights are often more of a suggestion than a rule to the overlords of the European Union, a proposal has been introduced to the European Parliament to mandate full time monitoring and reporting of all messaging communications and third party hosted data storage.
“With the stated intention of fighting against ‘child pornography’, the Commission plans to oblige all providers of e-mail, chat and messaging services to search for suspicious messages in a fully automated way and disclose them to the police. This requires them to monitor and scan the communications of all citizens. End-to-end encryption would have to be undermined by ‘client-side’ scanning on all mobile phones.”
Under the guise of protecting children from CSAM (child sexual abuse material), the proposed law could be in violation of European privacy regulations, and a lawsuit from a Member of the European Parliament, Dr. Patrick Breyer (Pirate Party), who goes on to say:
“Apart from ineffective web blocking, the proposed chat control threatens to destroy digital privacy of correspondence and secure encryption. Scanning personal cloud storage would result in the mass surveillance of private photos. Mandatory age verification would end anonymous communication. Appstore censorship would be the end of secure messenger apps and patronise young people. The proposal does not include the overdue obligation on law enforcement agencies to report and remove known abusive material on the net, nor does it provide for Europe-wide standards for effective prevention measures, victim support and counselling and effective criminal investigations. Von der Leyen continues to chart the territory of censorship, mass surveillance, anonymity bans and paternalism, while leaving the activities of child porn rings completely untouched. The proposed measures deprive the entire population of trust, self-determination and security on the net. This plan is nothing other than terrorism against our digital fundamental rights, which I will not relent to fight.
“This Big Brother attack on our mobile phones, private messages and photos with the help of error-prone algorithms is a giant step towards a Chinese-style surveillance state. Chat control is like the post office opening and scanning all letters – ineffective and illegal. Even the most intimate nude photos and sex chats can suddenly end up with company personnel or the police. Those who destroy the digital secrecy of letters destroy trust. We all depend on the security and confidentiality of private communication: People in need, victims of abuse, children, the economy and also state authorities”
