Signal Foundation President Calls Out EU’s Proposal of Scanning Private Messages

• EU's latest proposal, which suggests scanning private messages to limit the spread of child sexual abuse material, has sparked controversy.
• Meredith Whittaker, president of the Signal Foundation, feels that this would be the end of end-to-end encryption and will also open up several security issues.
• Similar concerns have also been raised by encrypted messaging service Threema and the EU's own data protection supervisor.

A recent proposal submitted by the EU has sparked widespread controversy. In its proposal, the EU suggested scanning the private messages of individuals to check for child abuse material.

However, Meredith Whittaker, president of the Signal Foundation, warned that this would be the end of end-to-end encryption.

It's worth noting that Signal Foundation, as the name might suggest, is the owner of the privacy-focused messaging service Signal.

There is no way to implement such proposals in the context of end-to-end encrypted communications without fundamentally undermining encryption and creating a dangerous vulnerability in core infrastructure that would have global implications well beyond Europe." - Meredith Whittaker

She also said that it's not just privacy that would be at stake if such a law is implemented, as it would also make user data more vulnerable to cyberattacks.

Even with a wide variety of encryption schemes available today, cyberattacks have only increased in both number and intensity. So, one could only imagine what would happen if encryption is entirely taken away. Not just hackers, but even rival nations could then use this opportunity to steal user data.

Whittaker isn't the only one against the proposal. The EU's own data protection supervisor warned last year that a move like this would undermine the democratic values of the country.

Encrypted messaging service Threema has also spoken out against this proposal. It said that no matter how the EU is trying to sell this idea, at the end of the day, it's mass screening," which is always a bad idea.

More About the Proposal

The proposal was first introduced in May 2022 to limit the spread of child sexual abuse material.

• Since then, the members of the parliament have protested against it citing obvious privacy reasons.
• They even suggested an alternative plan that would exclude end-to-end encrypted messaging apps from scanning.

However, the European Council wasn't ready to budge from its original proposal.

It even pushed a new proposal this month under the Belgian presidency. This would require providers of messaging services to install technologies for upload moderation".

Basically, what it would do is detect child sexual abuse material before a message is sent.

The new proposal would also require E2EE messaging apps to ask users to consent to scanning, and if they refuse, they won't be allowed to send visual content or URLs. This is just absurd.

Growing Pressure from Law Enforcement Authorities to Access Private Messages

A huge reason behind the EU taking such an initiative could be the growing pressure from law enforcement authorities.

This April, Europol asked the government and tech companies to do away with security technologies like E2EE because they come in the way of law enforcement agencies accessing problematic content.

It can be said that the agency has nothing against user privacy. It just wants a security system that allows it to keep an eye on illegal activities.

However, every time an initiative has been taken in this regard, it has been squashed by controversy.

For example, in 2022, Apple announced a feature called client-side screening for child sexual abuse material (CSAM). However, after privacy advocates protested against it, the feature was quickly dropped.

However, the EU's latest proposal might not share the same fate as Apple's initiative. Since lawmaking in the EU is a three-way affair and includes the Council, the Parliament, and the Commission, there's still hope for the proposal to be passed.

The Bottom Line

In my humble opinion, while the safety of children is something very serious and needs to be looked at with concern and proactiveness by the authorities, there's just no way it makes sense to do away with basic digital privacy of individuals.

This is like creating an ever bigger problem to solve another. Simply put, authorities need to find an alternative.

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