[HN Gopher] The EU still wants to scan your private messages an...
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The EU still wants to scan your private messages and photos
Author : MrBruh
Score : 495 points
Date : 2026-03-25 20:27 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (fightchatcontrol.eu)
(TXT) w3m dump (fightchatcontrol.eu)
| MrBruh wrote:
| You can directly call your representatives by looking them up
| here:
|
| https://www.europarl.europa.eu/portal/en
| vrganj wrote:
| Framing this as _the EU 's attempt_ is antieuropean propaganda.
|
| It is the _Conservatives_ attempt. The EU parliament is the
| entity that shot it down last time.
| ab5tract wrote:
| Can you clarify what you mean? The linked website makes it seem
| that the majority MEPs of the supporting countries are on
| board. Are all of the (listed as) supporting countries
| currently under conservative governments?
| vrganj wrote:
| To quote the banner on said website:
|
| > The Conservatives (EPP) are attempting to force a new vote
| on Thursday (26th), seeking to reverse Parliament's NO on
| indiscriminate scanning.
|
| The vote itself is being forced by the EPP. This article by
| an MEP has more info: https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/the-
| battle-over-chat-contro...
| freehorse wrote:
| This does not mean that only EPP supports the bill, though.
| vrganj wrote:
| No, but it does mean the _attempt_ is attributable to
| them.
| iso1631 wrote:
| There are two elements to the EU
|
| The Council, which is headed by the government of each member
| state in equal measure - similar to the Senate in the US
|
| And Parliament, which are directly elected by the people,
| with each member state having representitives in proportion
| to their population, so Germany has far more than Ireland.
| This is similar to Congress.
|
| Now this site says Germany supports it, but then says that
| MEPS
|
| > 49 oppose, 47 in favor (45 confirmed, 2 presumed based on
| government stance)
|
| I would thus infer that the "most member states" refer to the
| national governments (that were elected by their population)
| position and not the direct MEP position.
|
| However a quick look at the json it's loading and I can't see
|
| Now as the parliament has blocked it, a grouping, the "EPP"
| (Think Ronald Reagan type republicans) is trying to use their
| influence to bring it back to a vote.
|
| > "The Conservatives (EPP) are attempting to force a new vote
| on Thursday (26th), seeking to reverse Parliament's NO on
| indiscriminate scanning. This is a direct attack on democracy
| and blatant disregard for your right to privacy."
| sgt wrote:
| Is that fair? Ireland should surely have a say the same way
| Germany does in parliament too, if it's affecting Ireland
| just as much. If one considers countries as units.
| AnssiH wrote:
| The majority of the MEPs are not onboard _mandatory_
| scanning, otherwise that would 've been passed already.
|
| The site is conflating mandatory scanning with voluntary
| scanning (status quo). The upcoming vote is about continuing
| the voluntary scanning (which would otherwise expire).
| vaylian wrote:
| The "voluntary" scanning is still mass surveillance of
| private messages. We as technologist tend to rely on
| technical methods to protect our private data. But non-
| technical people should also enjoy confidential
| communication, even if they don't actively protect their
| conversations.
| lostmsu wrote:
| > voluntary scanning
|
| What is that? A setting in OS?
| 9dev wrote:
| This. There's a very specific group of twisted people that
| drive this, but equating that with the entire EU is flat out
| wrong.
| soulofmischief wrote:
| Fight Chat Control is a website maintained by a European. It is
| no more anti-European than I, an American, speaking about the
| latest antics of our conservative-led government and saying,
| "The US government is attempting to ____".
| ImJamal wrote:
| It seems like it is bipartisan to me. Do you have the
| statistics to back up your claim?
| elzbardico wrote:
| EU is not a synonym of Europe. EU propagandists don't get to
| define what Europe means.
|
| Second. Who gave you the right to define antieuropean union
| propaganda as a sin.
|
| Some people may hate it, some people may love it, other want to
| change it.
|
| It was created by vote, surely it can be whatever the fuck the
| way the people want by vote.
| vrganj wrote:
| EU is a synonym for Europe in colloquial conversation the
| same way USA is a synonym for America.
| Findecanor wrote:
| Except for in one EU country wherein English is a native
| language, "America" is a not a country but a very large
| continent.
| vrganj wrote:
| Das musst du jetzt aber mal den Amerikanern erklaren ;-)
| Findecanor wrote:
| Oder... sie konnten jemanden aus Sud- oder Mittelamerika
| fragen, was das Wort ,,Amerika" fur ihn bedeutet.
| vrganj wrote:
| Entiendo como se sienten los otros Americanos.
|
| But it doesn't change the fact of the matter that in
| English (and not only English! German, too, as
| demonstrated), these words have different meanings.
| GalaxyNova wrote:
| this is just wrong
| Findecanor wrote:
| I don't follow EU politics that much, but I know that one of
| the strongest proponents for it has been from the Swedish
| Social Democratic party, which has dominated Swedish politics.
|
| So, in my view this is not really a "left" or "right" thing,
| but something that is pushed by people you could call "the
| establishment".
| vrganj wrote:
| The vote has literally been scheduled by the EPP, the EU
| grouping of conservative parties.
| Pay08 wrote:
| And that means only they can support it? This isn't the
| USA, there's no 2 party system where everything "we" do is
| good and everything "the other side" does is bad.
| vrganj wrote:
| I'm not saying only they support it, nor do I believe
| most groupings in the EU are "good". I'm only saying the
| ones currently working on overturning the parliament vote
| are the Conservatives, seeing how they're the ones trying
| to force a revote.
| pcrh wrote:
| Exactly. EU legislation is _currently_ far more respecting of
| privacy than is legislation in the UK or the US.
|
| For various, and unclear, reasons, there is substantial backing
| to change this.
| EmbarrassedHelp wrote:
| In the UK, Apple is now blocking users from using any web
| browser to access "non-PG" content unless the user submits to
| privacy violating age verification. Apple blocks you at the
| OS level, making VPNs useless.
| izacus wrote:
| Yeah, it's like saying "USA wants to poison children still!"
| when a Republican files another deranged bill in their state.
| freehorse wrote:
| The last version of chat control was pushed by Denmark, which
| presided the european council until december, and with a social
| democratic prime minister (coalition government with social
| democrats the majority). The "conservatives push for chat
| control" is not really accurate, a bit part of social democrats
| are also supporting it.
| vrganj wrote:
| That is true, but _this attempt_ is led by the Conservatives.
| Not more, not less.
| Pay08 wrote:
| This is how political messaging has worked since I was born.
| oytis wrote:
| European Commission is basically as close to being EU's
| government as it can be, it is fair to say these are the people
| that represent EU now. Much like it's fair to say that US is
| bombing Iran even if not all of the US is doing that.
| leugim wrote:
| So they will pass it until is a yes?
| seanthemon wrote:
| Modern democracy
| tosti wrote:
| Wait until you find out it's actually already implemented and
| they're trying to legitimise it.
| AnssiH wrote:
| The proposal they are voting on _is_ about continuing the
| current time-limited implementation (voluntary scanning,
| Regulation (EU) 2021 /1232).
|
| This is not about mandatory scanning.
| cess11 wrote:
| It was one of the things Ylva Johansson infamously said
| about it, Microsoft and Apple are already doing it so
| what's the big deal?
|
| Makes me think about this clip.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjhsLq3-ZWE
| RobotToaster wrote:
| Exactly what happened when Ireland rejected the Lisbon treaty,
| they were told to vote again until they voted the "right" way.
| koolala wrote:
| Like UI saying "Yes" | "Ask later"
| askonomm wrote:
| That's literally the entire Microslop Winblows set up
| screen flow. There's no "no", only "confirm".
| paulddraper wrote:
| Almost happened with Brexit referendum.
| Kenji wrote:
| Of course. They literally spell their playbook out for you:
|
| "We decide something, then put it out there and wait for a
| while to see what happens.
|
| If there is then no great outcry and no uprisings, because most
| people do not even understand what has been decided, then we
| continue--step by step, until there is no turning back."
|
| -- Jean-Claude Juncker
| Acrobatic_Road wrote:
| They only have to win once. You have to win every time.
| fidotron wrote:
| Or, as is also seen elsewhere, wildly popular ideas simply get
| curiously stuck.
|
| Either way those elected to supposedly serve are the only ones
| winning.
| Lio wrote:
| Heads I win, tails you loose. :(
|
| It takes only one win to remove our rights but once they're
| gone you'll never get them back.
| rogerthis wrote:
| Yes. The anchor chain got broken sometime ago. It's still
| there, but nobody want it anymore.
| elzbardico wrote:
| They never quit. They just waited for something else to dominate
| the news, so they could fly it under the radar. The war started,
| so, they felt it was now or never.
| fooqux wrote:
| It's not now or never. It's now, or the next attempt or the
| next.
| jiggawatts wrote:
| Who is "they"?
|
| That's the key question!
|
| There's a _small_ group of very powerful people that keep
| pushing this agenda.
|
| Who are those people?
|
| Find out.
|
| Publicize their names. Make their corruption _visible_ and
| _linked to their identity_.
|
| In case anyone has an issue with this: Remember! This is what
| they want! For you! Not for them. Only the plebs.
| adammarples wrote:
| This isn't a conspiracy... "They" are the EPP, a
| democratically elected party acting fully in public with
| their names attached to everything.
| derefr wrote:
| So... if we all care so much about shooting down the bad idea,
| why is nobody proposing opposite legislation: a bill enshrining a
| right to private communications, such that bills like this one
| would become impossible to even table?
|
| Is it just that there's no "privacy lobby" interested in getting
| even one lawyer around to sit down and write it up?
|
| Or is there at least one such bill floating around, but no EU
| member state has been willing to table it for discussion?
| triska wrote:
| Quoting from the _Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European
| Union_ , https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-
| content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:12... :
|
| _" Article 7
|
| Respect for private and family life
|
| Everyone has the right to respect for his or her private and
| family life, home and communications.
|
| Article 8
|
| Protection of personal data
|
| 1. Everyone has the right to the protection of personal data
| concerning him or her.
|
| 2. Such data must be processed fairly for specified purposes
| and on the basis of the consent of the person concerned or some
| other legitimate basis laid down by law. Everyone has the right
| of access to data which has been collected concerning him or
| her, and the right to have it rectified.
|
| 3. Compliance with these rules shall be subject to control by
| an independent authority."_
| petermcneeley wrote:
| You know that those pieces of paper mean nothing.
| rvz wrote:
| Thank you for telling them. Governments do not care about
| anyone.
| rolandog wrote:
| In theory, governments are made up of citizens. In
| practice, once the citizens are corrupted into corporate
| shills, they become politicians. They have traded their
| humanity for business class seats and dining at
| restaurants that cater to those whose entire personality
| is talking about their investment portfolio.
| Macha wrote:
| In theory these limit the power of the EU, while anything
| the EU parliament passes can just be undone as easily by a
| future EU parliament. If you don't believe the EU charter
| provides any protection, why would you believe an EU law
| would be any different?
| port11 wrote:
| The Charter has been used by the courts to shoot down
| incoming legislation. So, in a way, those pieces of paper
| mean everything, as without them legislation would pass
| without the judiciary branch being a check on the Bloc's
| powers. Your comment is merely cynical.
| narmiouh wrote:
| It clearly states here in 2 "consent of the person concerned
| OR some other legitimate basis laid down the law", any random
| law will trump personal consent
| layer8 wrote:
| It doesn't remove the "right to the protection of personal
| data concerning him or her." The law cannot be random, it
| must ensure "fair processing" and be limited to "specific
| purposes", and the European Court of Justice as well as the
| ECHR will decide what constitutes a "legitimate basis" in
| that context. Furthermore, "Everyone has the right of
| access to data which has been collected concerning him or
| her", which ensures transparency of what is being
| collected.
|
| Last but not least, a number of EU countries enshrine
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secrecy_of_correspondence in
| their constitution.
| spwa4 wrote:
| Secrecy of correspondence only applies to sealed physical
| letters, so it has zero applicability to this law and
| provides zero protection against scanning of private
| messages.
|
| Also it isn't respected in most types of criminal trials.
| If a sealed physical letter is opened and proves fraud,
| for example ...
| troad wrote:
| One of the reasons international human rights law is so
| worthless in actual practice, is that half of it is framed
| like this. "Everyone has the right to X, except as duly
| restricted by law." Cool, so that's not a right at all
| then.
|
| Ditto the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, with its
| 'notwithstanding' clause. (Though they're presently
| litigating over that, so we'll see what happens!)
|
| Any constitution or human rights instrument full of
| exemptions, 'emergency powers', 'notwithstanding' clauses,
| or 'states of exception' is not worth the paper it's
| written on.
| svachalek wrote:
| Every contract I have to agree to these days has a "valid
| until unilaterally invalidated" clause. It feels like
| we're all just going through the motions.
| blks wrote:
| I feel we need something much more strongly worded to protect
| our mail, paper or electronic, messages and other
| communications from being read, not just "respect".
| layer8 wrote:
| This exists in a number of EU member states:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secrecy_of_correspondence
| thewebguyd wrote:
| The problem is, in all of those member states, they all
| have carve outs for "national security."
|
| Germany, for exmaple, has secrecy of correspondence that
| extends to electronic communications, but allows for
| "restrictions to protect the free democratic basic order"
| and outlines when intelligence services can bypass the
| right to privacy.
|
| Italy, France, and Polan also have similar carve outs.
|
| Having it as a right isn't enough. National security and
| "public safety" carve outs need to be eliminated. So long
| as those exist, we have no right to privacy.
| layer8 wrote:
| Rights are never absolute, they always have to be weighed
| against each other. The weighing can and should be
| debated, and needs strong protections when put into
| practice, but demanding an absolute is not reasonable.
| soraminazuki wrote:
| That's how human rights abuses are justified though.
| Every single time. This whole thread is talking about
| exactly that.
| dmitrygr wrote:
| I disagree. A right to privacy not only can be demanded,
| it should be demanded.
| derefr wrote:
| I dunno; I think in practice an absolute sometimes shakes
| out just fine.
|
| In this case, I see no reason that we have to consider
| the government's actions taken in pursuit of national
| security to be, per se, _legal_ , i.e. warranted, unable
| to be sued over, etc.
|
| Imagine a much weaker right granted to the state: the
| right to _maintain laws or regulations_ which require
| /force government or military employees to _do things
| that violate people 's rights and/or the law of the
| land_. But with no limit on liability. No grant of
| warrant. Just the mildest possible form of preservation:
| technically constitutional; and not immediately de-fanged
| the first time the Supreme Court gets their hands on it.
|
| So, for example, the President might send soldiers into
| your house to confiscate your laptop. It was legal for
| him to give this order. It was legal for the soldiers to
| obey this order. But the actual thing that happened _as a
| result_ was illegal -- it was criminal theft -- and you
| can therefore sue the state for damages about it! You can
| 't _strike down the law_ , but since it produces illegal
| _outcomes_ , you can _punish_ the government each and
| every time they use it!
|
| There is absolutely zero reason why the state shouldn't
| be expected to "make people whole" for damages it has
| caused them, each and every time it does something
| against the people's interest in the name of national
| security.
|
| And the simplest way to calculate that penalty / make the
| claiming and distribution of those rewards practical,
| would be to just _not remove_ liability for these actions
| taken on behalf of the state, by _not granting the state
| the right to do them in the first place_.
|
| Change my mind!
| g-b-r wrote:
| "to protect the free democratic basic order", the irony.
|
| It's incredible how even with the current surge of
| autocracy, most politicians can't see that the
| surveillance tools they crave for, could come under
| control of people much worse than them.
|
| And can't see what they could do with them.
|
| I think that many current governments in Europe are
| convinced that more surveillance will stop the autocratic
| surge. It's insane that they don't see how this is far
| from guaranteed, and how it will go if they're wrong.
| einpoklum wrote:
| Let's parse this a little.
|
| Article 7 codifies "respect for [one's] private life" and
| "respect for [one's] private communications". Well, "respect"
| is a vague notion. This does not clearly imply that the
| government is not allowed to read your communications, or
| otherwise spy on you, if it believes it has good reason. It
| will do so "respectfully", or supposedly minimize the
| intrusion etc.
|
| As for article 8: Here it is "protection of personal data"
| and "fair processing". It does not say "protection from
| government access"; and "processing" is when the government
| or some other party already has your data. In fact, as others
| point out, even this wording has an explicit legitimization
| of violation of privacy and 'protection' whenever there is a
| law which defines something as "legitimate basis" for
| invading your privacy.
|
| You would have liked to see wording like:
|
| * "Privacy in one's home, personal life, communications and
| digital interactions is a fundamental right."
|
| * "The EU, its members, its bodies, its officers and whoever
| acts on its behalf shall not invade individuals' privacy."
|
| and probably something about a non-absolute right to
| anonymity. Codified exceptions should be limited and not
| open-ended.
| weslleyskah wrote:
| The deal is that hiring a lawyer is costly and in civil cases
| each side has to carry his own expenses. These privacy laws
| keep shifting the focus every time and you need a good
| legislation for protection no matter what.
|
| Rather than arguing in court whether you did something, you
| will be arguing whether there is just enough reason to think
| that you could have based on data harvested on you by big
| tech.
| noir_lord wrote:
| It already violates Articles 7 and 8 of the EU Charter which is
| supposed to prevent stuff like this.
|
| The reality is that they'll just keep pushing it from different
| angles, they only have to get lucky once, we (or EU citizens,
| we left and have our own issues) need to be lucky _every_ time
| - much like an adverserial relationship where you are on the
| defending side from a cyberattack...funny that really.
| Pay08 wrote:
| Chat control is already illegal according to EU law, and has
| previously been ruled as such by the ECHR when Romania was
| trying to implement a chat control law that did actually pass,
| in 2014. But documents are documents (even the Rome statute),
| and can be rewritten.
| dgxyz wrote:
| There's no point. The only way you can fix this is to pretty
| heavily market the situation and publicise and shame the
| lobbyist scum pushing this. And their associated ties.
| thewebguyd wrote:
| The right to private communication is already enshrined in the
| EU.
|
| Article 7, EU Charter of Fundamental Rights: Respect for
| private and family life (and probably a couple other sections
| in there as well).
|
| The problem is national security exceptions. Chat control and
| other similar bills are trying to carve out exceptions to
| privacy laws under the excuse of national security.
|
| Also its politically cheap to introduce surveillance or to
| expand state power, it's comparatively extremely difficult to
| pass laws that specifically restrict state power.
|
| Privacy laws are well and good, but they exist. The problem is
| we need to stop allowing "public safety" or "national security"
| to be a trump card that allows exceptions to said laws, and
| good luck getting any government to ever agree that privacy is
| more important than national security.
| Noaidi wrote:
| You don't care by writing new legislation, you care by forming
| boycotts against the corporations that are not fighting back
| against the scanning. The world is not controlled by democracy,
| it is controlled by money and the oligarchs.
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| We can do more than one thing. Do not cede the weapon of
| lobbying to be used solely by opponents. You can get a lot
| done by talking to people.
| throwaway27448 wrote:
| I don't think that's a very sensical right (like most rights,
| frankly). Everyone has limits to the privacy they can expect.
| But we should have a social contract where we can expect
| privacy between mutually consenting parties intending to have
| private communication (eg not in a public square) without
| reasonable suspicion of a crime being committed.
| tekne wrote:
| Technology means there is only one truly stable compromise,
| imo: I am free to use whatever technical means at my disposal
| to encrypt my communications _and those of my customers_ (!),
| and you can try to read them as much as you want.
|
| Combined with the right to communicate across borders, you
| can get quite a bit of privacy: a server in both sides of a
| geopolitical conflict and they've got to collaborate to track
| you.
|
| And yet metadata collection is _both_ unavoidable (if you don
| 't collect it, your geopolitical opponents will) and _should
| be enough_. We don 't need chat control in a world where I
| get precision-targeted ads -- it's not even about freedom of
| speech or privacy, it's about freedom of _thought_.
| vaylian wrote:
| Past laws of this type are:
|
| - The GDPR
|
| - The ePrivacy directive, which is explicitly derogated
| (sabotaged) by chat control 1.0
| amarant wrote:
| If this law, or some future version of it, passes, I will
| derive great pleasure from a simple bash script sending a
| gdpr right to be forgotten request to eye European parliament
| in a daily basis
| follie wrote:
| I think the greatest risk to the EU is the sheer volume of
| communications it allows to travel without end-to-end
| encryption. Financial, infrastructure, personal political
| sentiment.. What doesn't a foreign enemy get volumes of minable
| data on?
| baal80spam wrote:
| But of course it's back.
| elzbardico wrote:
| Please, could the bootlickers of the European Union stop
| downvoting every single criticism of it?
|
| Are you so obtuse to be unable to figure out that by being like
| annoying school marms you are just making people start to pay
| more attention to the populists?
| freehorse wrote:
| I don't think criticisms of chat-control-like legislation
| attempts are downvoted here?
| Pay08 wrote:
| This guy has gone on a small anti-EU tirade elsewhere in the
| thread.
| hagbard_c wrote:
| If my experience is anything to go by the answer is 'yes':
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47412060
|
| _> The clearest example of lobbying (chat control) has
| repeatedly been struck down.
|
| They can try as often as they want and they only have to win
| once. We - as in those who don't want this Orwellian monster
| to be written into law - have to win all the time._
|
| That comment was quickly voted down. It is unclear whether
| this was the usual "don't like this person so I'll downvote
| all his last posts" or targeted at my statement on how these
| proposals keep on popping up no matter how often the people -
| in Greek that spells 'demosio' or 'demosio', the root of
| 'democracy' - have made clear they don't want it.
| layer8 wrote:
| One reason to downvote it is because laws having some
| stability is generally a good thing. It also doesn't
| prevent laws being passed that strengthen the right to
| privacy.
|
| The argument is a too simplistic criticism of the
| legislative process. And it's independent from criticizing
| the actual laws that are attempted to be passed. It applies
| equally to desirable and undesirable laws.
| JodieBenitez wrote:
| > Please, could the bootlickers of the European Union stop
| downvoting every single criticism of it?
|
| Hey, let's call this "forum control" :)
| kleiba wrote:
| If you're ever unsure about whether a proposed EU regulation may
| be good or bad, just look at whether Hungary supports it: if so,
| it's bad; if not, it might be good. Egeszsegere!
| orleyhuxwell wrote:
| I'm Polish and I was positivity shocked that we oppose it. I
| remember attending some protests against ACTA which as far as I
| remember was supposed to be something similar, back in my
| student days. It was -17degC and people still showed up.
| Apparently we have some culture of opposing censorship and
| invigilation by state. May come in handy if the democratic
| decline keeps progressing...
| warkdarrior wrote:
| Do you mean "surveillance" by the word "invigilation" here?
| subscribed wrote:
| Could be a wordplay due to the fact "invigilation" can be
| translated to and from the Polish word with a _very_ heavy
| and long connotations to the USSR state surveillance,
| oppression and abuse.
|
| Surveillance would be a more "modern" (even if more natural
| or seemingly correct word), without this sort of the
| implied baggage.
| nomel wrote:
| There a practical reason for this? like more alignment with
| lobbyists, for whatever financial reasons?
| jiggawatts wrote:
| Over the last two decades Hungary reversed course from a
| democracy joining the west to an authoritarian dictatorship
| in bed with the Russians.
|
| Hence, everything their government does is the opposite of
| what a typical European Union member would approve of.
| IshKebab wrote:
| I wonder what it would take to expel them from the EU...
| Macha wrote:
| Hungary is governed by a Russia aligned autocrat. This
| generally does not align with the priorities of the rest of
| the EU.
| lpcvoid wrote:
| Orban is an evil politician, and Fidez is an evil party.
| subscribed wrote:
| Orban is a Putin asset.
| dokyun wrote:
| So much for "digital soverignty".
| nunobrito wrote:
| They aid the truth because the complete slogan was about EU's
| digital sovereignity. Not really your sovereignity nor mine.
| dgxyz wrote:
| The trick here is to make it impossible to do so.
|
| Don't put your shit in the cloud and use proper E2E secure
| messaging.
|
| For me the entire idea of the cloud is dead due to exposure like
| this.
| cubefox wrote:
| It's client side scanning.
| dgxyz wrote:
| You can refuse to use software that does it.
| Zufriedenheit wrote:
| If they force their spyware into Android/iOS you are
| running out of options.
| dgxyz wrote:
| Pixel and GrapheneOS or something. Already considering
| it.
| NexRebular wrote:
| Gotta get back in time. The Symbian S60/S80 platform will
| rise again!
| nunobrito wrote:
| Like others said: this is implemented on operating system
| level, locally.
|
| There isn't much escape other than using messengers which
| encrypt the data locally. Geogram radio is doing this.
| dgxyz wrote:
| I'd rather use an older or open source OS without it
| vaylian wrote:
| People on HN but also criminals will know how circumvent this.
| But the average person will be completely lost in this
| surveillance apparatus. It's going to affect the wrong people.
| dgxyz wrote:
| I've been eternally surprised at how non technical people
| work around problems. I mean I have a totally technology
| illiterate family member who worked out how to torrent films
| and watch them and install ublock and Firefox.
| lostmsu wrote:
| That's one of the tricks. The other trick is to vote in
| universal right for encrypted communication once and for all.
| dgxyz wrote:
| That's the best answer. But you're up against paid up
| lobbyists.
| tekne wrote:
| Encryption is mathematics -- making this an issue of freedom
| not only of speech, but of thought.
| HelloUsername wrote:
| Why's there '?foo=bar' in the URL?
| brcmthrowaway wrote:
| It's a web bug
| mrbruh2 wrote:
| To get around the "dupe" filter, it was trying to mark it as a
| dupe of a 7 month old post.
| Stagnant wrote:
| Okay so I had to look in to it because the site is not really
| doing a good job explaining it at all. Turns out[0] that they are
| voting for the extension of the temporary regulation thats been
| in effect since 2021 (Regulation (EU) 2021/1232). So this is
| about the "voluntary scanning of private communications" (which
| is still bad, but has been in effect for almost 5 years already).
|
| [0]:
| https://www.europarl.europa.eu/sedcms/documents/PRIORITY_INF...
| AnssiH wrote:
| Here is the regulation that will be voted on:
| https://oeil.europarl.europa.eu/oeil/en/procedure-file?refer...
|
| Note that the amendment was already amended on 11th March to
| set expiry to Aug 2027 and to also exclude E2E communications.
| foweltschmerz wrote:
| This is the same EU that blocks and hinders innovation in the
| name of privacy?
| JodieBenitez wrote:
| "for sure"
| layer8 wrote:
| The EU isn't a single mind. There are a multitude of factions
| trying to get through all kinds of things.
| askonomm wrote:
| You are aware that EU is not a single country, right? I know
| American education is third-world levels these days, so
| unfortunately I have to ask this.
| mnewme wrote:
| Fun fact: the parties that want this are actually those who
| criticise the EU the most
| amarant wrote:
| Yes well, they're running out of good arguments to show how bad
| the EU is, so they have to force some bad decisions through so
| that they may have something to cry about.
|
| God I love politics
| doener wrote:
| See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47522647
| Smar wrote:
| So EU syill wants to harm children.
| xeonmc wrote:
| Epstein Union
| x775 wrote:
| I am the creator of Fight Chat Control.
|
| Thank you for sharing. It is unfortunately, once again, needed.
|
| The recent events have been rather dumbfounding. On March 11, the
| Parliament surprisingly voted to replace blanket mass
| surveillance with targeted monitoring of suspects following
| judicial involvement [0]. As Council refused to compromise, the
| trilogue negotiations were set to fail, thus allowing the
| Commission's current indiscriminate "Chat Control 1.0" to lapse
| [1]. This would have been the ideal outcome.
|
| In an unprecedented move, the EPP is attempting to force a repeat
| vote tomorrow, seeking to overturn the otherwise principled March
| 11 decision and instead favouring indiscriminate mass
| surveillance [1, 2]. In an attempt to avoid this, the Greens
| earlier today tried to remove the repeat vote from the agenda
| tomorrow, but this was voted down [3].
|
| As such, tomorrow, the Parliament will once again vote on Chat
| Control. And unlike March 11, multiple groups are split on the
| vote, including S&D and Renew. The EPP remains unified in its
| support for Chat Control. If you are a European citizen, I urge
| you to contact your MEPs by e-mail and, if you have time, by
| calling. We really are in the final stretch here and every action
| counts. I have just updated the website to reflect the votes
| today, allowing a more targeted approach.
|
| Happy to answer any questions.
|
| [0] https://mepwatch.eu/10/vote.html?v=188578
|
| [1] https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/the-battle-over-chat-
| contro...
|
| [2]
| https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/OJQ-10-2026-03...
|
| [3]
| https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/PV-10-2026-03-...
| dinoqqq wrote:
| You're a hero
| weakened_malloc wrote:
| You're doing God's work mate.
|
| It's really surprising to me that this issue keeps coming up
| time and time again, until I realised that it's non-voted in
| parties actually trying to pass this stuff!
|
| I didn't realise that the EU parliament simply says yes or no
| to bills and doesn't actually propose new laws, whilst the EU
| Commission are appointed and decide on what bills to push
| through.
| daoboy wrote:
| Thank you for what you're doing, this is an important fight.
|
| The story is tragically illustrative of the maxim that you can
| oppose terrible legislation a hundred times but they only have
| to pass it once.
| hsuduebc2 wrote:
| Nice website! Sadly, url stays the same across all coutries. I
| can't send anyone direct link.
| hsuduebc2 wrote:
| I absolutely don't understand how anyone can support this in the
| context of rising authoritarianism. Even people in my country
| which are talking about this phenomena supprts it. I strongly
| suspect that they do absolutely know shit about why it's
| problenatic.
|
| I wonder if they would support that every of paper mail would be
| opened and checked. I strongly doubt that.
| layer8 wrote:
| It's a symptom of authoritarianism rising. It wouldn't be
| rising if there wasn't anyone who supports things like that.
| hsuduebc2 wrote:
| That I would understand, but these policies are supported by
| most liberal politics from my country and opposed by some
| populists or "strong hand" politicians. I somehow understand
| that various russian agents are against that, because that
| can theoretically be used against them but these liberal
| democrats are somewhat mystery for me.
| stinkbeetle wrote:
| Because social cohesion is also breaking down (which is also by
| design). People increasingly do not trust and can not rely on
| neighbors and their fellow citizens to share similar interests
| and look out for one another. And they have much less power to
| organize with other citizens to petition their government.
|
| So they feel they must turn to the state for protection.
| max_ wrote:
| The lack of accountability after what was exposed in the Epstein
| files illustrates that not one in power actually care about kids.
|
| "Save the kids", is just a ploy to run scams.
| mastermedo wrote:
| What does this mean for a non-eu citizen communicating with an eu
| citizen? Is it as simple as using signal/matrix instead of
| whatsapp/messenger?
| tjwebbnorfolk wrote:
| does this violate GDPR?
| gib444 wrote:
| Maybe...in a world where lawmakers didn't put huge exemptions
| into GDPR for governments and law enforcement etc. Which they
| did.
| shevy-java wrote:
| They hate us for our freedoms.
|
| A shame the EU is just simulation of democracy.
|
| Best case in point:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatar_corruption_scandal_at_th...
| afh1 wrote:
| Where are all those "as an EU citizen" commenters? You are but a
| subject of an ultra-national government whose sole objective is
| ever increased control over your life and euros.
| moffkalast wrote:
| As an EU citizen I have to remind you that as a (most likely)
| US citizen, you've had the Patiot act sanction the NSA to have
| free reign for this sort of thing for the past 25 years.
|
| We've shot it down before, and we'll shoot it down again,
| regardless of how relentless Palantir lobbying gets.
| spwa4 wrote:
| But don't worry, exceptions for ALL officials are built in. And I
| do mean ALL officials. In this bill, for example, pedophile gym
| teachers are perfectly safe from getting scanned.
|
| Gym teachers are also the largest group of people convicted for
| pedophilia. So you can be sure they are keeping their priorities
| straight. States, and the monopoly telco's are also protected
| from paying even the tiniest amount of money for companies to do
| these scans, all costs are entirely offloaded to app developers.
|
| So the priorities are clear:
|
| 1) protecting the state from even the tiniest amount of
| responsibility, even at the cost of children getting abused
|
| 2) keeping some 50 foreign states from the same
|
| 3) keeping a whole list of organizations safe from inspections
|
| 4) keeping the state safe from actually spending any amount of
| money on these scans
|
| ...
|
| n) protecting children
| hkon wrote:
| ofc, they only need to get it approved once. they will try until
| they succeed
| Vinnl wrote:
| Just a heads up that this is being posted late in the European
| evening here, so that will affect who's commenting.
| gib444 wrote:
| Posted 9:30-11:30pm. Plenty of us awake
|
| It won't all be non-Europeans if that's what you're implying
| drnick1 wrote:
| > The "Chat Control" proposal would legalise scanning of all
| private digital communications, including encrypted messages and
| photos.
|
| How would this be enforced in practice? In other words, what
| would prevent E.U. users from using encrypted services outside of
| the jurisdiction of the E.U., to "illegally" encrypt their hard
| drives or to run their own private encrypted comms servers?
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