A very bad week for Europe

gvprtskvni

Tlhokaina The law currently being considered (Chat Control 1.0) allows online services to volontarily scan private user data.

Chat Control 2.0, that has thankfully (so far) been rejected/toned down, would have made this scanning mandatory for all services, including E2EE chats. If it came to pass, Signal/Molly would have had to either comply, stop operating in the EU, or face legal repercussions.

Carrousel7956

Eirikr70 They like to do a tiny bit at restricting companies from messing with your data, but they are authoritarian themselves and want as much power over their citizens and don't respect individual freedoms.

They have different problems than other countries. The US has a big problem with data brokers, Europe doesn't because of privacy laws, but many European countries have key disclosure laws, which are extreme violations of human rights.

Dboy

Kamika242 People who think: "I have nothing to hide" should ask themselves: " do I have something to lose?"

Delaney

Handlebar6933 A few days ago I saw a discussion among the typical corpo types on LinkedIn regarding digital ID, chatcontrol, etc..

As easy as it is to make fun of corpo individuals who don't know what they're talking about, I still think it's interesting to see takes outside of the privacy community. I assume the quotes are verbatim.

Handlebar6933 Anonymity online doesn't exist anyway, so we should demand digital ID

If anonymity doesn't exist, surely we don't need digital ID then?

Handlebar6933 so people are afraid of committing digital crimes and being toxic on social media.

This wouldn't stop people from being toxic online.

Handlebar6933 Cyberbullying and harassment online would easily lead to real life consequences.

As evident in the UK. The above point still stands, though.

Handlebar6933 I've heard from those in the field that it is possible to stop people from using stuff like VPNs

They are wrong.

Handlebar6933 We should be able to block any evasion attempts"

Not going to happen.

Handlebar6933 People should be held accountable for slander and insults too, especially of public figures because it doesn't count as free speech

I agree to an extent. No private entity or individual should have to tolerate harassment. However, saying it's not free speech is incorrect.

Handlebar6933 The argument about political dissenters and journalists is a strawman in western democracies because here you don't get persecuted for your beliefs unlike other countries

Even with free speech laws, journalists and political dissidents can face legal consequences.

Handlebar6933 Insider reporting of corporate abuses and crimes should just follow legal channels instead of trying to communicate anonymously with journalists

If by "legal channel" you mean a lawyer, then yes, corporate abuse should be reported.

Ondis

This is an absolute tragedy, then again I sometimes wonder if we don't deserve it the way we treat each other when we have some power somewhere. Maybe our leaders are not so different, they just think that they will be untouchable.

Wasn't chat control going to have an exception to higher government officials to allow encryption and thus space for them but not for us.

Tiered society, tiered accountability. But not only in the EU for sure.

router99

Ondis Maybe our leaders are not so different, they just think that they will be untouchable.

They will be, because we will take it and do nothing. Bread and circuses.

tux_

Handlebar6933 Since GOS would allow getting around those, their best bet would be to make it as annoying as possible to have a GOS phone by making mandatory government apps that only work if they pass play integrity.

It's all bluster; E.U. governments have no effective way of enforcing their spyware on user-controlled devices.

Regarding indispensable government apps, the obvious solution here is to buy a second cheap phone for those indispensable 2FA apps that may not run on GOS. Some people already resort to this because of the Play Integrity issue with banking apps.

Handlebar6933

tux_ Yes and indeed I already do that. Unfortunately that is why I believe play integrity could be a bigger threat to GOS than any government. The moment old, incompatible devices are out of the picture, Whatsapp, Spotify, Paypal, Banking apps and other apps that check for basic integrity could start checking for device or higher integrity, which means they would no longer work on GOS

Ondis

router99 That tends to be the case, people who have something to lose don't want to get in trouble. This sadly goes for everything. Then there are some of us who are bothered by it to their core, we just don't know when to shut up :)

Except I guess in this particular case the bread is getting stale, the portions fewer and the circuses ever more enshitified. Perhaps they get greedy and overstep their boundaries even for the common person.

MontBlanc

The problem, what's annoying me, is that the parliament already voted against this lawn, because of public critic however EU just said we don't accept this we just vote again later, maybe it will be voted for. 😔🤬

Eirikr70

MontBlanc That's not what's factually happening. Chat Control 1.0 has been temporarily enforced. The implementation period has now ended and the Parliament is voting for reconducting it. What has been rejected is Chat control 2.0, which is not proposed anew to the vote.

Ondis

Eirikr70 Isn't CC 1 worse than CC 2 because for CC 2 the S-dems and others managed to push in some restrictions?

Or perhaps CC1 is better than CC2 but CC2 could have been even worse without those amendments?

Eirikr70

Ondis I didn't take any position on which is worse, but tried to restore the truth about what is happening: it is not the Parliament voting again on what they initially had rejected, but voting again to reauthorise a system that has been in place and has come to an end. So what was exposed was false.
I don't have sufficient knowledge of the system to take a position about what is worse.

Ondis

Eirikr70 Weird, I deleted my post but somehow it got undeleted . Creeeepy.

I did some research and concluded its 100% option 2. I see @_zack_ mentioned it in the thread already now!

Your post was great either way. I thought you might know more.

_zack_

Ondis

Based on the Fight Chat Control Mastodon account

https://mastodon.social/@chatcontrol

As well as this article

https://cointelegraph.com/news/eu-to-again-vote-to-extend-chat-control-rules

From what I can understand tomorrow there will be a final vote on chat control 1.0, where an absolute majority is needed to stop it.
Based on the information I gathered I think (but I am unsure) that the final draft will be published tomorrow.

NetRunner88

_zack_

Passed
https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/eu-parliament-greenlights-chat-control-1-0-breyer-our-children-lose-out/

Today, the European Parliament allowed the suspicionless mass scanning of private communications (“Chat Control 1.0”) to pass, a measure it had rejected twice in March. Although a majority of voting Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) actually opposed the regulation (314 against, 276 in favor, 17 abstentions), the motion to reject it failed to secure the required absolute majority of 361 votes. As a result, mass scanning is now permitted again until 2028.

A symbolic exemption was adopted for encrypted communications—though in practice, service providers do not scan these anyway. Furthermore, while a majority of voting MEPs wanted to restrict the scanning of private communications strictly to suspects identified by the judiciary (322 to 255 votes), this amendment likewise fell short of the required absolute majority.

What changes with the return of Chat Control 1.0—and what stays the same:

What is coming back: US tech companies are once again allowed to scan private messages without a warrant or prior suspicion. This affects direct messages on platforms like Instagram, Discord, Snapchat, Skype, and Xbox, as well as emails via Google’s Gmail and Apple’s iCloud.
What remains unchanged: Public social media posts and files hosted in cloud storage could already be scanned without this law. Furthermore, private messages can always be reported by users, or monitored by authorities using targeted, court-ordered wiretapping.
What is still NOT being scanned: End-to-end encrypted chats, such as those on WhatsApp, have always been exempt from these scans. Additionally, European providers of messaging and email services have never implemented chat control measures.

Carrousel7956

Does anyone know which companies were doing scanning based on the Chat Control 1? Was there any transprarency required? Personally I would assume any non-e2ee messaging would be scanned, but I'm curious.

Byku

Carrousel7956
Meta ditched e2ee for Instagram in May so I bet they'll now be scanning those.

Ondis

Carrousel7956

That's a great question.

By the way, now that its out of the box again do we know of any leaks that mention abuse of the system where it was used for anything other than CSAM or where it completely failed and caused problems for someone innocent?

Im not under the illusion that it isn't happening even without sources of leaks or that its not a slippery slope (which is why I oppose it, we saw CC 2 already threatening encryption by proxy of "Child protection") but Im still curious if we know if they already could have done something foul?

Carrousel7956

Byku It was optional therefore no one used it so prolly no change. but yeah meta would definitely do that

Johnnyloans

NetRunner88 314 against, 276 in favor, 17 abstentions

Imagine if 360 voted no
0 votes yes

Still passes 🤯

This was voted down twice before then being shoved through as urgent, thus raising the bar for voting it down.

_zack_

NetRunner88

Thanks for your detailed post.
Unfortunately I am no surprised.
The only positive thing is that 2.0 has (so far) failed.
1.0 looks to me a lot like a legal shield to allow companies to legally scan their users chat

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