EU Proposes Chat Control Law For Scanning Encrypted Messages

The European Union is edging closer to enacting new regulations requiring the bulk scanning of digital communications, including encrypted ones. EU states will take a stance on the law that is being proposed to identify child sexual abuse material (CSAM) on Thursday. The outcome of the vote will decide whether or not the proposal has enough support to proceed through the EU legislative process.

The bill, which was first proposed in 2022, would put in place an “upload moderation” system that would examine all of your electronic correspondence, including links, uploaded photos, and videos. To deploy this “vetted” monitoring technology, each service needs to request authorization to go into your messages. You will not be allowed to share images or URLs if you do not agree.

The proposed law seems to both support and oppose end-to-end encryption as if this weren’t crazy enough. It begins by emphasizing how end-to-end encryption “is a necessary means of protecting fundamental rights,” but it continues by raising concerns about the possibility that encrypted messaging platforms could unintentionally turn into safe spaces where information about child sexual abuse can be exchanged or distributed.

The suggested fix is to allow messages to be scanned in whole, but in a way that preserves the layer of anonymity provided by end-to-end encryption. It implies that this could be achieved by the new moderation system seeing through your messages’ contents before Messenger, WhatsApp, and Signal encrypt them.

President of Signal Meredith Whittaker responds that if the regulations are passed, the app will no longer work in the EU since they “fundamentally undermine encryption,” regardless of whether or not it is reviewed before encryption. Whittaker explains, “We can refer to it as ‘upload moderation,’ a front door, or a backdoor.” “But regardless of the term we use, all these methods introduce a high-value vulnerability in place of the security provided by unbreakable math, making them vulnerable to hackers and hostile nation-states.”

A joint statement calling on the EU to oppose measures to scan user content has also been signed by several organizations, including Mozilla, the Center for Democracy & Technology, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Concerns over the idea are not limited to privacy advocates alone. Dozens of Parliamentarians opposed the notion in a letter to the EU Council sent this week. The plan has also drawn criticism from a German member of the European Parliament Patrick Breyer, who claims that “indiscriminate searches and error-prone disclosures of private talks and intimate images erode our fundamental right to private correspondence.”

Breyer claims that the revived conversation over the chat control statute wasn’t sudden. Supporters of chat regulation, according to him, are moving quickly to capitalize on the post-European Elections period, “during which there is less public attention and the new European Parliament is not yet constituted.”

Breyer also notes that Belgium’s current Interior Minister has led the country’s efforts to pass a chat control statute, and the country’s Presidency ends later this month. Breyer claims that “proponents failed to secure a majority last year.” “This might be their last chance.”

The EU’s Parliament, Council, and Commission will negotiate to create the final text of the law if the legislation receives support. But even with support from EU governments, proponents of chat control might still struggle to advance it. According to a survey done by the European Digital Rights (EDRi) organization last year, 66% of young people in the EU don’t agree with laws that let internet service providers read their messages.

Many parliamentarians are aware that mass monitoring is prohibited by fundamental rights, but Breyer notes that they don’t want to be seen as opposing a plan that is presented as a means of preventing CSAM. “My message is that, instead of empty promises, tech solutionism, and hidden agendas, children and abuse victims deserve measures that are truly effective and will hold up in court.”