As EU Commission Moves Forward With ‘Chat Control’ Proposal, EU Nations Continue To Push Back

Do not go gentle into that mass surveillance night, as the phrase goes. The EU Commission is sure something needs to be done about the sharing of child sexual abuse material (CSAM). And it's not wrong! Things need to be done.

But these are not the things. While the spread of CSAM is definitely something to be concerned about, the solution is not opening up everyone's content and communications to government examination. But that seems to be what the EU Commission wants. It has been pushing for client-side scanning of content (something that necessitates the destruction of end-to-end encryption) and other forms of mandated monitoring for several years now.

But every time the EU Commission pushes, it gets pushed back. Several tech companies have announced their plans to stop offering services in EU nations if this proposal passes. Several EU members have announced their unwillingness to vote in favor of this proposal. Others have simply stated they will never attempt to enforce even if it becomes law.

Even the EU Commission's own legal counsel has stated the proposal would violate existing EU laws. That legal advice suggests the law will immediately be found unlawful the moment it is challenged in the EU rights court. Moving forward without significant alterations would be nothing more than the supporters of the proposal setting fire to the public's money. And yet, the push from the Commission continues.

But! So does the pushback. Here's the latest, as reported by Andre Meister for Netzpolitk. (Apologies in advance for any auto-translation issues appearing in the quoted sections.) While noting that nine states agree (for the most part) with the mass surveillance proposal, plenty of others have something to say about this absurd power grab being proposed in the name of the abused children.

Here they are, in the order reported by Netzpolitik:

In the coalition agreement,the German federal government rejectsgeneral monitoring obligations" and measures for scanning private communication".

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Austria calls the current proposal not capable of approval".The random chat control is not in accordance with fundamental rights".

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The Netherlands sees the chat control very critically".Providers should be obliged at the very most" as a last resort" to check the content, before all other measures must be taken".The protection of human rights must not be left to the service providers".The Netherlands demanded that neither new material nor grooming" should be sought.

That's three solid no's." As the German government has already stated, it won't be involved with this mess should it become EU law. Austria has now joined Germany in stating there's no possible way the law will be legal. And the Netherlands wants to see limits Commission members are currently unwilling to apply to the law in order to prevent service providers from being held legally accountable for the actions of their users.

There's more:

Poland cannot support" the draft and criticizes that many Polish proposals were not taken into account".The chats of unsuspected persons must not be checked without cause, that is disproportionate.

That's another nation unwilling to pass the proposal in its current state. Its objection has been greeted with confusion by the very subservient Spanish government, which seems to feel the law is not about giving the government more access to communications, but about risk reduction and prevention." And that's only the sort of obtuseness a burgeoning fascist state can provide. Governments that actually respect rights have objected. The Spanish government, however, wants its populace cowed and a new set of tools to oppress Catalan dissidents.

Meanwhile, on the encryption front, the EU remains a land of contrasts:

A month earlier, the then Swedish Council Presidency hadproposed two new paragraphs.They should make it clear that the law does not include general monitoring obligations" or measures to circumvent encryption".Spain had called forend-to-end encryption to be bannedand hasscrappedboth proposals.

Nine countries support the deletion, including Italy, Romania and Hungary.

Seven countries are against the deletion, including Portugal and Austria.Sweden has a headache" about it.Poland refers to it as the red line".Austria wants to resume the ban on general surveillance, which is alsoin the Digital Services Act.The Netherlands is calling for the protection of end-to-end encryption" to be anchored in the legal text.

As it stands now, at least four countries are prepared to fully reject the proposal. Others are unhappy, but are hoping their objections will factor into the next round of edits. A few countries (looking at you especially, Spain) appear to believe any expansion of the surveillance state is acceptable, whether or not it has any effect on the creation and distribution of CSAM.

What's on display here highlights the insularity of those pushing for surveillance power expansions. They thought no one would object to the proposal for fear of appearing aligned with child abusers. But the opposite has proven true: member states are unwilling to make everyone subject to increased surveillance just because a small minority of service users choose to commit criminal acts.