Having recently taken control of the European Council, Denmark’ is leading efforts to enforce chat control across the EU. Unfortunately, this has only gained additional support across member states.
To block this proposal, four members totaling at least 35% of the EU’s population must go against it. Only the Netherlands, Poland, Estonia, Luxembourg, and Slovenia remain fully opposed to Chat Control’s current implementation.
Former German Pirate Party MEP Patrick Breyer has posted the following call-to-action and infographic on X that can help visualize the current status of EU member support.
my goverment is in favour? That is so dissapointing, they gotta stop giving me reasons to move to japan or somehwere else in europe at all cost.
well greece hasnt decided yet, could be safe to move there depending on the decision.
Will try to call to oppose this, seems lke my essay video will have a chapter 3!
No, they would stop trying, if law would have less support. Now they see the gap to pass it is small, so they keep trying to go past this finishing line.
Another concerning article about the EU parliament:
(P.S. great that in the Council - a minority can stop the law, because parliaments need a majority to stop laws)
I haven’t read the proposal; is it only aimed at developers implementing backdoors in, for example, WhatsApp, or would it also become a crime to use non-backdoored messaging apps afterwards?
I tried to find the newest Danish proposal just now, but did not find yet.
I think it is about backdoors. For example, making Signal no longer private, and so, removing ability to privately communicate for law abiding regular citizens.
Not yet.
Stupid or strange thing here is that lawmakers will never stop criminals from using private communication anyways, because they don’t follow the law in the first place. Only what they are apparently trying to achieve is forbidding regular people to communicate in privacy.
Well, we know that Signal won’t comply, so if this would pass, Signal would leave the EU, and then Apple and Google would remove it form the app stores. That doesn’t mean that you wouldn’t be able to use Signal as an EU citizen, but would require that you get the app outside of official app stores, which at least for iOS isn’t possible right now.
Any experts here or one reading this thread - let’s say this happens in full and as they want to, what happens then? What happens to encrypted IMs? What are the real most likely consequences of this? Can someone play this out for me?
(I think I know the answer and I am not seeking confirmation bias on my part but genuinely wondering still/nonetheless)
Maybe we would become like these Ukrainian activists (in the FOSDEM talk above) communicating privately still outside of (increasingly (wannabe) authoritarian) government control.
EU is the strongest defender of privacy with most complex democracy (most difficult to pass bad laws, because minority can block it). If EU falls with privacy, what else will be left to step in its place?
On iOS In the EU sideloading other app stores is allowed and therefore other apps, Signal would likely to have to publish their app in something like the AltStore.
You could otherwise make it very convincing on the iPhone that you’re in the USA and still have signal on the app store but yeah.
Does anyone know whether countries listed as “in favour” can change their mind at this point? I mean - is there any point in contacting representatives of my country when it is already listed as “in favour”?
Depending on the country, position ‘in favour’ may have been decided by few people of the government, because it is not discussed by the journalists at least in my country. Most of local parliamentarians likely don’t even know that this issue exists, at least in my country. So if you inform them that you care, they can help to change position of the government.
I will expand in a little more detail what I mean by ‘few people’, but at the same time ‘most complex democracy’ in more detail.
This is how I imagine it works:
There is a responsible ministries for this particular question (law enforcement ministry of the country for example, and other ministries can share responsibility). It’s bureaucrats and other influences (like agencies) decide the position of that ministry.
Then there is vote by the cabinet of ministers of the country, who vote on the recommended position by the experts (law enforcement ministry) and recommended by other important influences (below).
Delegates travel to EU Council of Ministers to negotiate their governments position or vote (video of previous public vote https://video.consilium.europa.eu/event/en/27778 - the vote actually did not happen, because president asked everyone in advance and since too many governments declared: they support the law, but will abstain from the vote, because don’t support chat control part, so they postponed it to negotiate/improve the law further).
This law is not named ‘chat control’, but it has other important title “Regulation to prevent and combat child sexual abuse” where chat control is hidden in).
So, if issue is not being talked by the journalists or real debate by more people, then local parliamentarians (or ministers who vote) may not know it in good enough detail what they vote about.
But in other countries, there may be a lot more debate, more awareness, and position can be a bit more established.
Parliamentarians of current coalition (or member of European parliament) can educate ministers and influence how ministers vote, to determine particular government position. In other countries, whole parliaments vote if it is an important enough issue.
