Germany is not supporting ChatControl – blocking minority secured

https://digitalcourage.social/@echo_pbreyer/115184350819592476

by xyzal • 10 months ago

1128 335 10 months ago

timpera• 10 months ago

It's not the end of the fight, but it's great to see that the efforts are working! I sent a handwritten letter to my MPs a few weeks ago about this issue but no answer so far...

riedel4• 10 months ago

They oppose breaking encryption, however, I see no true opposition to on device scanning, which is a bit worrying.

The BMI representative explained that they could not fully support the Danish position. They were, for example, opposed to breaking the encryption. The goal was to develop a unified compromise proposal – also to prevent the interim regulation from expiring. [0]

Edit: source [0] https://www.bundestag.de/presse/hib/kurzmeldungen-1108356

lukan• 10 months ago

"Es sei klar, dass privater, vertraulicher Austausch auch weiterhin privat sein müsse."

"Private communication needs to stay private"

I interprete this as not having a dumb police bot installed on my devices checking all my communication. That sometimes by misstake sends very private pictures away, because it missclassified.

This is what chat control means and I believe if most people would understand it, they would not be in support of it. It is no coincidence, that the outcry mainly happens in tech affine groups.

silverliver2• 10 months ago

There is no on-device scanning without compromising privacy. Scanning that can detect child abuse can also detect human rights activists, investigative journalists, and so on. I imagine this technology can be easily used by the government to identify journalists by scanning for material related to their investigation.

On-device scanning is a fabrication that Apple foolishly introduced to the mainstream, and one that rabid politicians bit into and refuse to let go.

CjHuber• 10 months ago

I know in the US it's very common to write emails or letters to their governor, but still I see it somewhat cynical. Like a popular tweet mattering much more than letters that probably won't be opened at all, and if it is opened I cannot imagine a MP reading all of them, more likely a clerk saying "You've got x citizens sending you letters about y", which would then again be somewhat valuable but I also can't imagine they have clerks opening every letter.

alphazard• 10 months ago

common to write emails or letters to their governor, but still I see it somewhat cynical.

Yes, writing letters to these people is unlikely to help. The only language they speak is in votes. They have to be convinced that they will lose reelection over the issue. A conditional prediction market for their reelection given they vote a certain way would be the most effective tool.

rsynnott2• 10 months ago

Sometimes making a politician aware that "if you vote for this, it may annoy people" can be enough. Your average politician votes on a _lot_ of things, many of which they know little or nothing about. They will take only a small number of them seriously, and a big factor in what gets taken seriously is what people are moaning about.

The first step really is just getting the politician to think about what they're voting on.

They also don't actually necessarily get _that_ many letters.

HexPhantom5• 10 months ago

Politicians notice when enough people take the time to reach out, especially in such a personal way

addandsubtract• 10 months ago

I used the online form at fightchatcontrol.eu to send an e-mail to all of my representatives. Of the 90ish contacts, 4 replied – all agreeing to be against the proposal. One of them even mentioned the influx of mails they were receiving about the topic. So that gives me hope.

port113• 10 months ago

The fight shouldn't have to be fought continuously. If legislation is shot down repeatedly, there should be a delay before it can be brought back again.

inglor_cz7• 10 months ago

Yesss.

It seems that public pressure pays off.

During the first iterations of Chat Control, I was pretty much the first source (a poor blogger with about ten thousand irregular readers!!) that wrote about it in Czech. It was surreal to break news on something THAT important (and blatantly unconstitutional in Czechia), while all the bigger media just slept ... and slept ... and slept ... Almost bizarre, I felt as if I was watching news from a parallel universe where that thing just does not exist.

The latest round was already much better covered by the media, including the publicly paid TV and radio. It took them three years, but they noticed. It was also more discussed on the Internet. Slovakia flipped its position precisely due to grassroots pressure.

andrepd2• 10 months ago

It was surreal to break news on something THAT important (and blatantly unconstitutional in Czechia), while all the bigger media just slept ... and slept ... and slept ...

Unfortunately it's the pyramid of Maslow. It's hard to make people care about something that seems academic when there are much more pressing political problems crushing people and making sure they don't have space to think about anything else.

It's hard to make people care about privacy principles when they can't afford a house anymore.

inglor_cz7• 10 months ago

That too, but my experience was that a huge part of the problem was sheer ignorance.

When informed about those plans, most people actually react with some disgust. But the European Commission was really trying to be low-key around this, and the media usually jump on loud scandals first. Too few journalists are willing to poke around in the huge undercurrent of not-very-public issues and fish for some deadly denizens there.

More publicity definitely helped the freedom's cause here.

kriro• 10 months ago

Thank you for doing that nad being a voice for liberty.

sunaookami• 10 months ago

German public broadcaster published a commentary last year after Chat Control was blocked saying that "child safety needs to wait" and lamenting that it didn't get through. Absolutely horrifying how much distance the media has from the people.

Kelteseth• 10 months ago

Proud to be a German today, for sure :)

inglor_cz7• 10 months ago

Yay for Dobrindt and vdL losing this fight :)

She is not called Zensursula without a reason.

riedel4• 10 months ago

I think the front lines are not that clear. Zensursula was actually a termed coined because she wanted the German equivalent of the online safety act in Germany back in the days. The 'Stasi 2.0' initiative (data retention at ISPs and online 'raids') was backed by some people in CDU and SPD (current ruling coalition). IMHO online safety (censorship) and chat control (privacy invasion) are different beasts, with different lobby groups as well.

Hamuko3• 10 months ago

Glad that my country (Finland) is also on the correct side of this. Disappointed that our Nordic and Baltic neighbours are not though. Would've expected more, especially from Estonia.

jeltz• 10 months ago

Sweden and Denmark are some of the main drivers of this proposal. As a Swede I am a bit unclear why as while our politicians are quite pro-survelliance they have spent much more political capital than reasonable.

One possible reason seems to be lobbyism and shady connections to surveillance tech companies and various shady non-profits

https://balkaninsight.com/2023/09/25/who-benefits-inside-the...

ahartmetz• 10 months ago

Johansson, however, has not blinked. “The privacy advocates sound very loud,” the commissioner said in a speech in November 2021. “But someone must also speak for the children.”

Literal "Won't anybody think of the children" moment.

supermatt3• 10 months ago

Disappointed that our Nordic and Baltic neighbours are not though

Why do you think the Baltics are in favour? Are there some announcements they have made?

BoredPositron• 10 months ago

Edit: You were totally right Matt. Brain fart.

Hamuko3• 10 months ago

Because that’s what the link says.

ur-whale• 10 months ago

Funny how the map shows a clear north/south divide (modulo some nordics).

Looks like latin cultures don't really care about being spied on by they governments.

monegator• 10 months ago

* There is absolute ZERO information about this in the news, not even from the privacy authority

* There is little to no faith in our elected officials, especially from _that_ side

* Also people don't seem to care, all invested in the "i have nothing to hide" mentality

andrepd2• 10 months ago

"Latin cultures" is a really wild way to put it, when Denmark has been the most prominent promoter of the initiative.

This is a map of the government's positions, not even the parliament much less the public, and therefore a picture of whatever happen to be the parties in charge at the current time.

riffraff• 10 months ago

ireland and latvia, classic latin shenanigans.

izacus3• 10 months ago

"Some nordics" are MOST of the nordics, meaning - all the north though.

xeonmc• 10 months ago

Where do Switzerland fall on the map?

Dilettante_3• 10 months ago

Switzerland is not a part of the EU.

jansan• 10 months ago

Even if they did, I am sure this would have been toppled by our constitutional court. You have to know that our police is not allowed to scan number plates of cars entering or leaving the country due to privacy concerns. How on earth would anyone think that lifting our dearly held fundamental right of "mail privacy" is ok?

uyzstvqs2• 10 months ago

Even if it's EU regulation? My experience is that you get told that EU regulation and international treaties are "above our national democratic/justice system", and that we can't do anything about it.

klinch• 10 months ago

IANAL - but when EU regulation and national law regarding civil rights conflict then the citizen has the "union set" of all guaranteed rights. Or in other words: A member state can grant additional civil rights (on top of the EU charta) but can't take them away.

nickslaughter026• 10 months ago

That's how it works.

Primacy of European Union law
European law has priority over any contravening national law, including the constitution of a member state itself

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primacy_of_European_Union_law

3np2• 10 months ago

Germany specifically seems to have an out if it comes down to it.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primacy_of_European_Union_la...

ManBeardPc2• 10 months ago

It would probably be toppled by courts, yes. Anyway, meanwhile they already start implementing it, developing the technology and infrastructure they can base on the next time where they basically reintroduce the same illegal laws in a new name. So companies and governments already have to spent huge sums of resources to introduce it and may fall into the sunken-cost fallacy. "If we now already have it we can also use it (for something else)"?

freehorse3• 10 months ago

If this was becoming an EU regulation, constitutional courts can decide to overrun constitution to uphold it (as has happened in the past plenty).

What this implies for the democratic values eu is supposed to represent is an interesting discussion.

izacus3• 10 months ago

The claim that this can "overrun constitution" has not been true at all which we've seen in examples of other directives.

doikor4• 10 months ago

This isn’t how EU regulation/directives work as they are not laws.

Only way this can come into force in a member country is that country making their own law implementing it. It is at that point that constitutionality should be checked and the law stopped from being implemented.

egorfine• 10 months ago

Excellent win!

See you next time.

teekert2• 10 months ago

Next time, when the proposal is worse, when less people care, and the methods to stop it no longer exist.

portaouflop• 10 months ago

The struggle never stops, that is part of the human condition - you should embrace this endless cycle with confidence instead of cynical defeatism

latexr2• 10 months ago

“Next time” is preferable to now. Giving up and bringing others down is not the answer. If you want to give up, that’s your prerogative, but please don’t drag others down with you, you’re working against your own best interests. The thing you said right now is exactly what the bad actors want, don’t play into their hands. Thankfully not everyone has that defeatist attitude, or the law would have passed the first time.

And the proposal has not been worse, it’s more crippled with every attempt. Maybe we can’t stop the problem indefinitely, but we can mitigate the harm. Or maybe we can stop it long enough that the people making these proposals are replaced and we eventually win.

Don’t give up. You don’t have to fight along every one else, but if you’re not actively helping, I humbly ask that you also don’t actively make it worse.

ManBeardPc2• 10 months ago

Glad we could delay it for now. It will come back again and again with that high of support though. Also the German Bundestag is already discussing a compromise: https://www.bundestag.de/presse/hib/kurzmeldungen-1108356. They are only unhappy with certain points like breaking encryption. They still want to destroy privacy and cut back our rights in the name of "safety", just a little less.

mrktf• 10 months ago

Yes, sad part it will be implemented and I betting even in worse form than it is proposed... And worst part of it "safety" it for current governing party to destroy any opposition.

My wild guess it will voted for with overwhelming majority using "times changed" argument.

FinnLobsien• 10 months ago

Let's hope it will be implemented in typical "Germany does anything on the computer" fashion where they endlessly debate into a theoretically comprehensive, but impossible to implement solution.

latexr2• 10 months ago

it will be implemented and I betting even in worse form than it is proposed

That doesn’t seem likely, because every time this fails the new version is compromised from the previous one. For example, in the last revision you would be able to refuse the monitoring but it would mean you would be unable to send files or links. Still bad, but not worse.

ta12436• 10 months ago

The only way to win the argument is to win the argument with the public.

In the UK the public overwhelmingly support the age controls, so even political parties who would otherwise oppose it just stay silent, because the public narrative

You have to shift the narrative. Farage does this - he's finally after 20 years managed to get elected to parliament, he's head of a company with 4 MPs, same say as the Greens, about the same as the nationalists, yet for 20 years he has steered the conversation and got what he wants time after time

iLoveOncall2• 10 months ago

In the UK the public overwhelmingly support the age controls

This couldn't be further from the truth.

People usually support the idea if asked on the street in passing, but don't support the implementation at all.

mihaaly• 10 months ago

The loudest and the weirdest get the most airtime. Not all conversations are golden. He is a lying, opportunistic, self-existence driven ass. Farage is not a reference for how to do things, not even close, not at all!

It is of course unfortunate that a big part of the population is heavily influenceable by almost anything that has some scary perspective, in whatever size, over-considering dangers to opportunities to the extremes (want to eliminate dangers, hopelessly), also can only hear what is too loud, so the real democratic conversations and resulting decisions are distorted a lot. Better focus on improving this, than put a self centered ass on the pedestal to follow!

ljm• 10 months ago

Farage only has this traction because he's financed and platformed by interests (Russia, conservative Christian groups in the US, right wing media) that benefit from the division his inflammatory politics creates. This gives him and his party a disproportionate amount of attention compared to other, larger parties with more MPs.

The playbook that was overwhelmingly successful for making Brexit happen is being used again, but this time for immigration.

The fact he got elected as MP only serves to give credibility to his backers' narrative, given that he does not serve his constituency and is too busy schmoozing the US right wing. At one point in time he would have been forced to resign in disgrace for backroom dealing like this (as previous MPs have before).

mytailorisrich5• 10 months ago

he's head of a company with 4 MPs, same say as the Greens

The electoral system has been working against him. At the last general election Reform got a larger share of the vote than the Lib Dems, yet the result is that they got 5 MPs while the Lib Dems got 72.

The Brexit referendum and the current national polls that put Reform in first place at 27% (YouGov) show that they are not just "steering the conversation". When people's concerns keep being ignored at one point someone will come up to fill this "gap in the market", this is legitimate and how democracy works.

immibis7• 10 months ago

Having public opinion on your side is necessary, but not sufficient. Politicians impose laws that people don't want all the time.

uyzstvqs2• 10 months ago

The bigger issue is that we need to make the EU actually democratic. Start by removing every branch but the European Parliament. That's the only solution.

Vespasian2• 10 months ago

The EU council is formed by the democratically elected member states. This follows an "upper house" approach used in many european countries.

I'm strongly in favor of giving the parliament the ability to propose laws (directives). Currently only the comission can do that.

somewhereoutth• 10 months ago

The highest body of the EU is the Council. Nothing happens without the approval of the Council. In comparison, the Commission is merely the civil service or secretariat, answering to the Council.

Each member state has a seat at the Council, and for almost all issues a veto. Each member state is democratic, therefore the EU itself is entirely democratic. That doesn't of course mean the right decisions are always made!

mytailorisrich5• 10 months ago

The only solution is to stop the EU level power grab by formally restricting what the EU can do and to make sure member states remain where most of the power lies.

The US have that. The EU does not so as time passes the EU's power keeps creeping up.

tannhaeuser2• 10 months ago

The postulate for EU structural reform towards perfection is typical of HN and other nerds drooling over their programming language and frameworks ;) but in real life had been tried with the Lisboa treaty to the extent it was deemed possible, and no-one involved with it wants to reopen the case. I'm also sometimes angry at EU as well, but the reality is there are over twenty member states, with their constitutions, languages, democratic and other traditions such as federalism and minority rules, bilateral treatments, special interests, and backroom deals to take care of. It's a miracle the EU exists at all.

hnhg• 10 months ago

And neuter the influence of deep-pocketed lobbying entities - US entities in particular seem to spend a lot of money on influencing EU politics: https://www.lobbyfacts.eu/

NoboruWataya3• 10 months ago

Parliament needs to approve any meaningful EU legislation anyway. The Commission cannot legislate. The problem isn't that the EU is undemocratic, it's that our elected lawmakers all seem to want to trample our privacy for one reason or another (see: the UK)

cm2187• 10 months ago

The EU parliament is highly dysfunctional. First look at the number of MEP that have been indicted for corruption. Also in the countries I know, political parties send as MEP their least able politicians that they don’t know what to do and would never be elected if their name was on the ticket. Combine that with the flaws of all the national parliaments and you get a sorry clown show.

ktosobcy4• 10 months ago

Erm... it's as democratic as it possibly can be when it comes to a union of independend, sovereign states...

We do have EP with directly elected MEPs; we have CoE which is indirectly elected but still represents the "will of the people" but on the state level; then we have the European Council which is also in a way representative of state interest and then we have indirectly elected by the aformentioned European Comission.

The concept of indirectly elected representatives is not new - in most democracies you vote for MPs and they then form the government and choose prime minister.

Given that the EU is "one level up" it complicates stuff. We could argue that we could make it completely democratic and only have the parliment but this would completely sidetrack any influence of the state.

So if we want to maintain the balance we have this convoluted system.

Ideally EP should have legislative initiative rights and the president of the EC should be elected more transparently (for example the vote in EP should be public).

rbehrends3• 10 months ago

What you are proposing would amount replacing the current bicameral legislature (with the European Parliament as the lower house and the Council of the EU as the upper house) with a unicameral legislature. That would actually make it easier for bad laws to be passed, especially as the supermajority required in the Council is currently the biggest obstacle for this kind of legislation.

I'll also note that nothing here is per se undemocratic. Both the Parliament and the Council are made up of elected members. The members of the Council (as members of the national governments) are indirectly elected, but elected all the same. Direct election is not a requirement for a democracy (see election of the US president or the US Senate prior to the 17th amendment or the Senate of Canada right now).

That does not mean that there isn't plenty of valid criticism of the EU's current structure, but claiming that it is not "actually democratic" falls far short of a meaningful critique.

johannes12343212• 10 months ago

That would lead to turning EU from a union of states into a state in itself. This may be great, but would depower national states.

And it has a major problem: There is no European public. Cultural differences ad language barrier make it hard to follow debates and issues. It is a lot simpler to follow my elected governments behavior.

Also the parliament would lose its style of working. Currently there is cooperation accross parties and a less strict "government vs opposition" than in most other parliaments, which means that MEPs actually got a vote (in the areas where the parliament matters) instead dof being whipped by party leaders.

And then: Most decision power is with the council, which is made of democratically elected governments (if we ignore the Hungary problem ...)

Scarblac• 10 months ago

That means removing souvereignty from the member states, and there's no way they're all going to agree on that any time soon.

izacus3• 10 months ago

Funny how we never hear WHY EU is undemocratic in these posts. It's always this one line dropped in the middle of conversations.

And every time I push a bit the answer seems to be "EU didn't follow my preferred decision". :P

msh• 10 months ago

That would just transfer power from the small countries to the big countries.

Xelbair2• 10 months ago

Or just make European Commission be directly elected in such system:

- candidate needs to be proposed in country

- EU wide elections are held, candidates can only gather votes outside of their own country.

- Votes are weighted by amount of seats in EU parliament.

What we have right now does not work at all, EC has 0 responsibility(towards EU citizens) for their own actions and is basically a magical black box.

munksbeer2• 10 months ago

The bigger issue is that we need to make the EU actually democratic. Start by removing every branch but the European Parliament. That's the only solution.

For goodness sake, you are sending people on goose chases instead of the real problem.

What happened here falls under the exact definition of representative democracy. There are some politicians from certain nation states pushing for the policy. They request the commission (the civil service type group) to work on the proposals, and then elected MEPs vote on it.

Again and again I have to keep repeating the same message:

This is NOT some random bureaucrats in some EU group deciding they want to push a policy. This is our elected politicians being influenced some some other agency to push chat control. They're pushing it through the EU commission, because that is how it works.

Please people, inform yourselves, or you're going to get this all wrong and fight the wrong fight.

doikor4• 10 months ago

Why would any member state give away their sovereignty like that?

EU is setup like it is on purpose. Parliament represents the people, council the member countries and commission EU itself.

The one with most power is the council as nothing really goes though without their (heads of state of the member countries) approval as EU has no legislative powers of its own but instead member countries have to implement the directives.

immibis7• 10 months ago

What do you mean "we"? Politicians don't care about you and me, and protesting is merely a useful distraction.

joz1-k• 10 months ago

I also think this is just a delay, not a final win. Also, this page hasn't been updated yet: <https://fightchatcontrol.eu/>

I recently heard a political discussion about this topic and was disappointed by the lack of technical competency among the participants. What we're talking about here is the requirement to run a non-auditable, non-transparent black box on any device to scan all communications. What could possibly go wrong with that?

0points2• 10 months ago

It's always just a delay until the next round with these guys.

Chat control has already been voted down more than once in the past.

They will keep at it until they succeed [1]. The playbook was copied from the tobacco & oil industry and perfected by hollywood.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_to_Prevent_and_Comb...

x775• 10 months ago

Just updated.

boppo1• 10 months ago

I mean, could the solution just be for tech-literate people to red-team the shit out of it and show how vulnerable and stupid it is?

ghusto• 10 months ago

requirement to run a non-auditable, non-transparent black box on any device to scan all communications

I wasn't exactly thrilled at the prospect of some kind of encryption backdoor, but hearing it put like this genuinely horrifies me. Like a vulnerable keylogger on every device.

ryandrake• 10 months ago

What does a "final win" even look like? The powers that want this will simply propose it over and over and over until they win once, and then it's basically law forever. The "against" team needs to win every time, forever.

HexPhantom5• 10 months ago

The game isn't to win once, it’s to keep resisting every watered-down version they throw

kebman3• 10 months ago

Is this a good time to plug the creation of chat protocols running over distributed hash tables (DHT) (essentially a decentralized way of creating mini message servers) and with forward security and end-to-end encryption? I made a POF in Rust but I don't have time to dev this right now. (Unless angel investors to help me shift priorities lol...)

_aavaa_6• 10 months ago

It’s not. This is a political problem, not a technical one.

IlikeKitties• 10 months ago

Here's whats coming: Devices will be locked down by remote attestation and hardware secure models by the vendors like google, apple and microsoft. Only registered devs will be allowed to make software for those devices. They simply won't run unless the software is backed by a google/Apple/MS signed certificate. They'll make chat software that doesn't run chat control illegal. If you make it, you'll lose your signing certificate and no one will be able to run it. Sure there will be nerds running modified devices with no check but it's about compliance for > 99% of the people. No one you care for will use that software because they won't be able to run any banking software, other chat software, social media apps etc. on their phone if they jailbreak it.

ori_b• 10 months ago

No, it's a good time to start lobbying for positive privacy legislation.

woah• 10 months ago

If they put a chip in every phone that grabs messages out of memory on their way to be rendered in the UI, it doesn't matter how fancy your backend encryption technology is

liendolucas• 10 months ago

Apparently Italy will support it. This is absolutely infuriating and it will fail miserably. Encryption can't he stopped no matter what law gets out there and any politician voting in favor shows how ignorants they are.

Instead of discussing WHY "owned" mobile phones have a short lifespan and we can't truly do whatever we want with them (be at the hardware/software level) and forced to choose between the apple and google duopoly, we get into these lousy law debates about privacy.

Why doesn't the EU put effort in paving the way for a more open and free tech world when we rely 100% on propietary technology that comes from the other side of the Atlantic?

guappa3• 10 months ago

Because USA sends their ambassadors to threaten you if think the free market is free and decide to no longer buy from them.

https://lwn.net/Articles/1013776/

arlort6• 10 months ago

Instead of discussing WHY "owned" mobile phones have a short lifespan and we can't truly do whatever we want with them (be at the hardware/software level) and forced to choose between the apple and google duopoly, we get into these lousy law debates about privacy.

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20240419IP...

https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/priorities-...

AlgebraFox• 10 months ago

Encryption cannot be stopped. But Android and iOS can be backdoored. These evil companies lock down our devices, does not allow apps to run without their approval, and selectively push updates from their servers to our devices.

This is a wet dream for governments.

mrtksn3• 10 months ago

IIRC It's Denmark that keeps pushing for this. Is there anyone here to give more background on that?

BSDobelix3• 10 months ago

>Return of chat control: Something is rotten in the state of Denmark

https://www.euronews.com/next/2025/08/08/return-of-chat-cont...

tucnak2• 10 months ago

The unfortunate reality is that a single largest lobbyist for Chat Control in the EU is, ironically, the US, namely the US intel community-affiliated orgs like Thorn, WeProtect, etc. The EU bureaucrats are gullible, and it's no excuse of course, however there's a reason why every time there's a new driver, a new country behind Chat Control proposals. This has been part of coordinated U.S. signals collection strategy. Nobody in Europe stands to gain anything from this besides the US as all tech solutions for this are provided by US companies and agencies alone. The boards of these orgs are crawling with Washington guys, & their activity is limited to foreign countries. Not once have they attempted anything of the sort on US soil.

See https://news.ycombinator.com/context?id=44929535

mrtksn3• 10 months ago

Hmm, maybe the anti-chatControl movement should add some anti-Americanism in it then?

emptysongglass• 10 months ago

Sorry, as a Dane, this weird conspiracy narrative that the US has us by the throats and is forcing us to push this legislation through is garbage.

Our government did this because they love control. A hard hand is what got us through COVID and it's been effective at curtailing a lot of the issues our neighbor to our north has faced with uncontrolled immigration of refugees. Our government has also been pushing through expansion of surveillance capabilities for our police, including predictive policing and expanded facial recognition.

Now kindly stop passing the buck and blame for us. This is on us, on Denmark. We are to blame.

wisienkas• 10 months ago

I hate to see my country pushing for this. It has not touched the media at all in Denmark(Highly suspicious that even the gossip and drama medias have not touched the subject) and the public opinion is a hard NO for this type of regulation and invasion of privacy. I am yet to see anyone actually supporting this from a citizen perspective.

mrtksn3• 10 months ago

How come even when the Danish public has no interest in such a thing the Danish politicians keep fixated on this?

eclat• 10 months ago

The first promoter of this is actually a Swedish social democrat who was a socialist a very long time ago. I guess she kept the knack for a nanny state.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ylva_Johansson?wprov=sfti1#

nabla9• 10 months ago

As long as I remember there has been these initiatives in EU. They have been all blocked so far, or turned into something reasonable, but there will always be a new try.

"Think of the children" will never die.

tannhaeuser2• 10 months ago

It's easy to blame EU lobbyism, but as the situation in UK shows, the EU legislative process can also used to save us from ourselves.

That said, how come we haven't seen massive antitrust action against the likes of Google? You only have to follow the money here.

rsynnott2• 10 months ago

Oh, not just the EU. This sort of thing is about as old as generally available public key encryption. An early example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_chip

krunck• 10 months ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalyp...

Raed667• 10 months ago

Unless there is a law that says that the fundamental right to privacy is protected then we're bound to repeat this ordeal every couple of years.

BSDobelix3• 10 months ago

Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948):

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with their privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honor and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks

tgv• 10 months ago

Sounds like the European Court of Human Rights would annul it, but you can't be sure.

_ink_• 10 months ago

It's also in the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). But that has a big loop whole.

Article 8: Right to privacy

1. Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence. 2. There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.

silverliver2• 10 months ago

Are all UN nations bound to this declaration or at least those joining after 1948?

luckys• 10 months ago

I 100% agree with the right to privacy but the keyword there is arbitrary - if everyone's comms get intercepted that would not be in contravence of the Declaration, as it would be done systematically, i.e. not arbitrarily.

The spirit of the laws is all fine and good but combing through them it's not uncommon to find these little loopholes.

contrarian12343• 10 months ago

I don't mean this in an antagonistic way, but has anyone clearly articulated a right to privacy in a clear succinct way? Unlike other human rights, the right to privacy has always been a bit fuzzy with a ton of exceptions and caveats

I just find it hard to imagine the right to privacy encoded in to law in a way that would block this. For instance there is a right to privacy in the US, but it's in a completely idiotic way. The 14th Amendment doesn't talk about privacy in any way, and it's some legal contortions and mental gymnastics that are upholding any right to privacy there.

Geee• 10 months ago

It's simple game theory. If one player (government) has access to private information of all players (citizens), then it's not possible to keep the government from winning, i.e. becoming tyrannical. Losing privacy equals losing liberty.

taink2• 10 months ago

What would pass "clear and succinct" in your opinion? I don't see how it is less clearly defined than any other human right.

Let's take international law[1]. Right to privacy is defined as protection from arbitrary interference with privacy.

Is this definition problematic? Privacy itself has a short definition too: the ability of one to remove themselves or information about themselves from the public[2].

I don't see what is unclear or verbose here.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_privacy#International [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privacy

baranul• 10 months ago

This is correct, but also the problem. Various governments and organizations don't want to respect privacy, because they see it as a means of control and profit.

victorbjorklund• 10 months ago

There are laws about that already. However they have exceptions (and most people support exceptions. No one expects for example the privacy of ISIS terrorists be respected when they are investigated for terrorism and there are probable cause).

immibis7• 10 months ago

Probable cause is the exception. The police should have to suspect a particular person and then get a warrant approved by a judge and then they can breach privacy. Just like it's always been. They keep pushing for a wider and wider net, though.

juliangmp• 10 months ago

In Germany there is article 10 of the Grundgesetz. While it does allow exceptions (like through a warrant), I wouldn't be surprised that if this law was passed that our constitutional court would deny it based on article 10 (any maybe article 1, that one's important)

HexPhantom5• 10 months ago

It shouldn't be a constant uphill battle just to keep basic rights intact

immibis7• 10 months ago

There is one, which is why we keep repeating the ordeal. If there wasn't, Chat Control would have been implemented a decade ago.

tcldr• 10 months ago

With a warrant from a judge people should be compelled to provide access to their encrypted files or be in contempt of court with all that entails. Anything else is overreach.

heikkilevanto• 10 months ago

Wonderful idea. All I need to is to create an encrypted file with pedo pictures or terrorist plans or just white noise, send a copy to all my enemies, and tip off the authorities.

boxed4• 10 months ago

And what happens when your enemies can't produce the decryption key?

fauigerzigerk• 10 months ago

No, that's not all you need to do unless your only goal is to harass your enemies and cause inconvenience.

schroeding• 10 months ago

You cannot prove the absence of e.g. a Veracrypt hidden volume or similar, though. Even if you honestly give up your key, you could still be either

A) held in contempt of court, if the authorities do not find what they expect for some reason and accuse you of using such techniques or

B) if you specify that such behaviour by law enforcement is overreach, have a clean way out for criminals, codified in law, heavily damaging the impact you may expect of such a law.

Y_Y• 10 months ago

What's the difference between that and an incriminating paper document that the police believe you have hidden somewhere in the vast woods?

jdasdf• 10 months ago

No one should be compelled to aid in their prosecution.

zarzavat2• 10 months ago

Between this and Google locking down Android, one day the only way to get secure communications will be to buy Huawei etc. Thank God for China, bastion of free speech.

NikxDa• 10 months ago

Yes, China, the bastion of free speech...

https://freedomhouse.org/country/china/freedom-world/2025

bcraven• 10 months ago

I know HN takes a dim view on them, but that post was a joke. Of _course_ China isn't a bastion of free speech, that is why the joke is funny.

lyu07282• 10 months ago

In a few decades the only uncensored communication possible will be using LoRa mesh networks smuggled into the west illegally by some human rights activists. Some people will always find a way to organize against our government's latest atrocities and genocides no matter how oppressive it is yet to become.

rapind• 10 months ago

But I have nothing to hide! /s

tenacious_tuna2• 10 months ago

Can you elaborate on how Google is locking down Android? I'm not familiar

zarzavat2• 10 months ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45017028

mutkach• 10 months ago

Why would you really need something like that in a non-totalitarian state? Basically, it follows the russian playbook (essentially the same 'language' - safety concerns), but instead of the FSB, who is the beneficiary actor in this case?

pembrook• 10 months ago

Many people working in government wish they were administering a totalitarian state, and would be the beneficiary actors.

Government is a job that self-selects for people who either want safety (non elected jobs) or power (elected jobs) more than anything else, given it pays far less than the private sector. Both the safety people and the power people want to reduce public freedom and the ability to do things.

The only way we keep these people from this is the threat of voting them out of their jobs. But they are more motivated than we are, so they usually win over time.

wtbdbrrr2• 10 months ago

someone has to prove illicit connections to private companies and potentially black markets. the data is guaranteed to end up in the wrong hands which will have a worse impact on the lives of citizens, workers as much as educated ones, and definitely officials; how to better gain dirt on someone if the law supports breaking encryption and they falsely believe their state of the art messaging app is worth more than the skeletons in their closets?

at the least the basic human rights and privacy laws should be on everyones' side ... except rapists, the many kinds of violent abusers, murderers, especially the genocidal kind, drug punchers, and these fuckers roofying kids in clubs and bars just to have sex ... I probably forgot some ... sorry I didn't stay on topic.

As Freud wanted to let us know, the ageing rich are perverts with enough means to hide any crime ... then they made him bend over and invent the Oedipus complex, ffs

the only way for them to create an argument for ChatControl is more terrorism or some fucked up crimes against children so this damn thing is a sure-fire shitstorm with recursive, bad yields.

nickslaughter026• 10 months ago

https://balkaninsight.com/2023/09/25/who-benefits-inside-the...

wtbdbrrr2• 10 months ago

big thanks.

deafpolygon• 10 months ago

Happy to see the NL here in opposition to ChatControl! The political climate here is slowly pushing to the right, which I'm not happy about. But there seems to be voices getting louder from the left. So that leaves me with hope!

ktosobcy4• 10 months ago

Maybe an ECI (european citizens' initiative) that would burry the thing for good? :)

arlort6• 10 months ago

That's not how laws work. New laws always override old laws so an ECI (or any law) won't ever replace active participation in the res publica

ktosobcy4• 10 months ago

That's true, but that would be a huge signal of a rejection. What's more - changing such law would be slightly more complex than just introducing the backdor IMHO.

HexPhantom5• 10 months ago

Honestly, this whole ChatControl proposal reeks of the "think of the children" excuse being used to push through mass surveillance

palata2• 10 months ago

I think many genuinely just want to increase security for their people. Not mass surveillance and orwellian control.

They just don't understand why it's technically not possible to achieve what they want without unacceptable risks.

Similar to the climate change issue: no politician is aiming at having their children die before retirement age from the consequences of climate change. They just don't understand that they are pushing us there (like most of the people, to be fair).

dathinab• 10 months ago

Maybe, just maybe, (probably not) they learned something from the NSA/FBI (I don't remember) tricking the BSI into helping them with industry espionage against a large Germany company[^1]. and pretty much any technology widely used in chat control would be under tight US control, or Israel which in recent times also isn't exactly know to be a peace seeking reasonable acting country.

[^1]: Which I think was about car companies and pre-trump, pre-disel-gate. Also not the only time where it's known that the US engaged on industry espionage against close allies or Germany specifically.

Kim_Bruning• 10 months ago

Instead of playing defense, I think we need to take positive steps.

Secrecy of Correspondence[1] is something that desperately needs to be extended fully to mobile devices.

Compare how many letters you get vs how many chat messages you send.

Secrecy of (mobile) communications should be recognized as a (natural?) right.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secrecy_of_correspondence

(edit: unbreak formatting)

Ericson2314• 10 months ago

Agreed that we can just do defense so close to loosing, we need a proper buffer, not just hoping nothing changes.

nickslaughter026• 10 months ago

Just think for a moment how broken the EU model is. You don't want something to pass. Other citizens of your country don't want the thing to pass. Your politicians don't want that thing to pass. Your euro politicians don't want that thing to pass. Yet in the current model that doesn't matter one bit because your SOVEREIGN country may still be overruled by foreign countries and politicians.

It's unbelievable that we have allowed EU to spread into this all encompassing monster that deals with anything but economic cooperation among member countries.

-------------------

European law has priority over any contravening national law, including the constitution of a member state itself

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primacy_of_European_Union_law

fabbbbb• 10 months ago

Is this a EU thing? Replace Country by municipality, province, state.

seabass-labrax2• 10 months ago

That is factually untrue. While governments of member states of the EU no longer have a direct veto against proposed EU legislation in many cases, the EU does not claim any sovereignty over member states.

If a member state fails to block a proposal, all that simply means is that the qualified majority[1] of representatives of other member states believes the legislation to be so important that the union would not work without it. Dissenting member states can seek to reverse or temper the legislation later, or simply leave the union - see Brexit. No sovereignty is violated at any point.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_in_the_Council_of_the_E...

nickslaughter026• 10 months ago

Primacy of European Union law
The primacy of European Union law (sometimes referred to as supremacy or precedence of European law[1]) is a legal principle of rule according to higher law establishing precedence of European Union law over conflicting national laws of EU member states.

The principle was derived from an interpretation of the European Court of Justice, which ruled that European law has priority over any contravening national law, including the constitution of a member state itself.[2][3][4] For the European Court of Justice, national courts and public officials must disapply a national norm that they consider not to be compliant with the EU law.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primacy_of_European_Union_law

Vinnl• 10 months ago

Other inhabitants of my town don't want something to pass. The local politicians of my town don't want something to pass. The politicians I elected to the national government don't want it to pass. Yet that doesn't matter one bit because my town my still be overruled by non-local towns and politicians.

This will always be a problem at every level.

shakesbeard• 10 months ago

That's literally how any representative democracy work, just at a different level? The Free State of Bavaria could say the same about the Federal Republic of Germany.

paintbox• 10 months ago

If entities comprising the union are not forced to compromise (and compromise by some type of majority is the most logical one), and want to pick and choose, then that is no union. And there can be no union like that.

arlort6• 10 months ago

Yet in the current model that doesn't matter one bit

It matters because if it's that important to you then you have a sovereign right to leave the EU and do away with all the rules you don't want

Staying inside of it and accepting primacy of EU law when decisions are lawfully taken following the process you've agreed to of your own country's free will is a choice

whiterock• 10 months ago

Austria opposing, meanwhile planning their own version of it nationally lol.

cenamus• 10 months ago

Wish I knew wtf they are cooking up for us

Ylpertnodi• 10 months ago

Whatever it is, history is not on your side.

sensanaty• 10 months ago

I'd support this if and only if we ran a trial where all public officials had all their messages and emails publicly readable by citizens. Surely the good people adamant on spying on their constituents en-masse has nothing to hide, right?

GardenLetter27• 10 months ago

This is good, but we do need some sort of progress somehow. As that case with the fake drug dealer "privacy-focussed" mobile phone company was crazy, when they had all the messages from Swedish death squads, etc. - https://www.404media.co/watch-inside-the-fbis-secret-phone-c...

Obviously monitoring everyone's messages is making things way too easy for authoritarian dictatorships later on, but there does need to be some progress so these groups can't keep acting with complete impunity.

listic• 10 months ago

How is the blocking minority counted?

8/27=0.296 (29.6%), and I thought it has to be 35% (65% supporters to pass)

caeruleus• 10 months ago

A qualified majority needs

(1) 55% of countries [15 atm] (2) representing 65% of EU population.

If one of the above is not met, a blocking minority (usually) needs >=4 countries to vote against a proposal. Germany voting against CSAR would mean (2) is not met in this case.

Source: https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/council-eu/voting-system/...

dev1ycan• 10 months ago

The real question to me is, why is Europe and Europeans okay with America and American software companies having access to their logs (encryption can be bypassed take whatsapp for example, do you honestly bellieve that Facebook does not have access to whatever is typed on whatsapp and/or can give it to authorities if necessary?) or discord, which if you are on mobile tells you via a title what the conversation you're having is about, is automatic message scanning not involved there? but the EU and or European countries cannot?

If we go by the idea that America should not either, then go ahead and do something about it, all this seems to me is just some weirdly motivated "activism" that may or may not be originated from the source that actually has access to said data at the moment. I am going to go with the belief that people are not naive and instead they are acting maliciously about this knowing very well that this already occurs, but only for a specific side.

darqis• 10 months ago

The fascists will continue to bring it back again and again, just like Microsoft TCPA and TPM different name same shit

palata2• 10 months ago

I'm against ChatControl like most tech-savy people. But because someone is in favour doesn't mean they are a fascist. Usually they just don't understand why it is a problem.

"If it helps the good guys, I don't see a problem" is easy to say. And if you tell them "yeah but if it helps the good guys, it helps the bad guys", they will simply answer "well, make it such that it doesn't help the bad guys".

munksbeer2• 10 months ago

What should actually happen is that adversaries of this policy should challenge those backing chat control to a test. Those backing it get to attempt to make it work for a year in a control environment, and if at the end of that year, they still can't read every message that actors within that control environment send to each-other (which they won't), we abandon the whole thing for good.

"Bad guys" will always find a way around any attempt to stop them communicating privately. And the rest of the population will be left with governments spying on all of our interactions. The fact that this is even getting this far is absurd.

Anamon• 10 months ago

Why not? They should then also be forced to red-team the heck out of it. If they claim so confidently that it can be done securely, ask them to prove it and set up a bug bounty program. Then watch them scramble for excuses when the first person releases all recorded messages within an hour of the system going up.

another_twist• 10 months ago

I dont get it, what problem are they trying to solve ? This kind of regulation stirs up a lot of shit and just wastes everyones time.

lofaszvanitt• 10 months ago

Just replace politicians with AI. As soon as the systems are reliable.

rasz• 10 months ago

Opposition from biggest victims of russian occupation and KGB invigilation.

Germany - Das Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (Stasi).

Poland - Służba Bezpieczeństwa (SB)

Czech and Slovakia - Státní bezpečnost (StB)

DerWOK• 10 months ago

Time to buy a MeshTastic node?

Germany is not supporting ChatControl – blocking minority secured

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