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Majority of EU countries support scanning of audio communications (euractiv.com)
62 points by mdp2021 on May 16, 2023 | hide | past | favorite | 51 comments



I used to be a convinced pro-European but for me it's getting harder and harder to _not_ believe in some kind of plot for assuming total control over their citizens. Each and every EU regulation concerning "things digital" is pointing to a direction where "freedom" is just an empty buzzword used for virtue signalling against states like China. I am getting seriously concerned about things (not that i haven't been before).


Wasn't it proven that the US does this since a long time and whistleblowers lives ruined? Obama even has given an apologetic speech for it?

I'm not supporting this but if it will happen I would prefer it happening openly within a legal framework.

I don't get the appeal for it being done by secret services instead of civil services. I guess it's about different relationship with the governments.

Yesterday I saw a tweet from Paul Graham calling European AI startups to pre-emptively move to the US because of some EU regulation draft, today top topics here are about OpenAI speaking with the US government trying to scare them into requiring licensing to work on AI.

Maybe the contrast between US/EU is not as stark as the narrative makes it appear.


Yeah I was always thinking the same. They must be jealous about the enormous surveillance power that accumulated in the US for over 2 decades.

Thing is: If the strategy is to have total surveillance based on an open legal framework then they should actively market it as that. I _might_ even agree with that. But given they're BSing us with "protect the children" I cannot help but see them as bad actors doing stupid/evil sh*t.


I agree with the point about the hypocrisy around all these things. It just fuels straight into the distrust machine.

But I am not sure whether it is about jealousy of the US as such, but perhaps more about alleged or real fears about the domestic instability of the US, its commitment to Europe, and the shifting landscape in the great power politics game. Therefore, there are already open proposals to create a "European CIA":

https://ksr.hkspublications.org/2023/04/06/if-you-want-peace...


> I used to be a convinced pro-European but for me it's getting harder and harder to _not_ believe in some kind of plot for assuming total control over their citizens.

The EU is just catching up to the US:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A


You mean catching up to government paranoia initiated by 9/11 which led to 2 unnecessary wars, never seen before government surveillance and destabilization of the middle east. Great job, let's do the same!


It was not initiated by 9/11. 9/11 was just an excuse to extend surveillance.


It is a difficult thing. Because of it's size, the EU often feels unnaccountable to me. Also the news does not focus on who votes for what or what their ideas in the EU are but only focusses on national level. And then the EU makes decisions that I dissagree with and it leaves a bad taste.

On the other hand, I believe the EU has so much potential and is a huge benefit overall


I would say it is accountable buuuttt ssoooooo sssllooowwwwww that in the end it almost feels unaccountable, and that's a pity. I don't know though how to bring together so many directions and so many (levels of) legislators in a quicker manner... and let's face it, the EU voters aren't smarter or better informed than in other places.


It isn't a plot, it is a bureaucracy. And old and a scared one.

I too went from pro-European to being mostly critical of it. That was years ago though. Some parts do good work, but these attempts are just overreaching.

The EU is no federation and it shouldn't be one. It would be governed by people like this that have basically no accountability. You can argue that it is just the governments of member states, but that doesn't make it any better. The vast majority are not accountable to you in any case.

Of course the EU has a democratic deficit. Although even wikipedia articles about that are already full of propaganda.

Best solution to the current dilemma is to put up technical realities that make such attempts unfeasible.


[flagged]


It is not "exclusively the right". The social democrats strongly voted in favour of chatcontrol. If there's anything all EU bureaucrats are agreeing on, it's that they need more power.

https://mepwatch.eu/9/vote.html?v=134463


European social democracy hasn't been left in some time apart for maybe in words.

Regarding EU votes it is fun to always see the same division: people from countries where there is still a left phalanx of the social democratic party always seem to have people (who are always the same) voting with GUE/NGL.


This is a terrible headline. It gives impression that the majority of electorate supports this. Or maybe majority of their respective parliaments does.

But it's just the executive branch of the EU itself- "A majority of the EU Council of Ministers". More or less, each government selects a minister to represent them in this council.

The article should really be reporting on how this bill is progressing. I am no legal expert, but I believe the EU parliament, which is actually elected, could reject it. I am not sure what happens if it is found unconstitutional in some of the countries concerned.


> More or less, each government selects a minister to represent them in this council.

That's right; but note that the minister they select depends on what's being discussed. There isn't really a "Council of Ministers" you could list the names of; it changes for each meeting.

That is, the C of M is really a council of member governments. And what government wouldn't like to have the EU mandate maximum surveillance, so when their citizens complain, they can just blame the EU?


You can see this all the time in German politics. Someone says that they don't want to do a thing in Germany and than just do it in the EU. The best example would probably be chat control.


> I am not sure what happens if it is found unconstitutional in some of the countries concerned.

The general principle is that EU law takes precedence over national laws, including national constitutions. If a member state finds a law unconstitutional, they have a few options. They could try to convince everyone else to change the law. They could change their constitution. They could leave the EU. Or they could just ignore the law and face the political and financial consequences.

In some sense, the EU is no different from any other legally binding international treaty. It's a package deal, so you can't avoid the aspects you don't like. But because treaties are between sovereign states, it's always possible to leave them.


> I am not sure what happens if it is found unconstitutional in some of the countries concerned.

I am sure that we are not going to bring those to justice that create law that is found unconstitutional.


Well these are ministers for interior matters. Probably one of the worst government jobs and maybe the only one where you could excuse them having a pro-surveillance position or arguing for something like that by default.

Well, someone has to take that job. But they shouldn't be listend to and I think these ambitions are clearly in violation of multiple constitutions. Although those that have exemptions for security are more or less worthless anyway.


It's sad that "think of the children" is still argument that works on some dumbasses.


It's equally sad that privacy advocates (of whom I am one) mostly refuse to acknowledge that CSAM is a real and measurable problem, which specifically exploits children's naïveté and lack of agency. 'Think of the children' should absolutely not be the only decision-making criterion, but it should absolutely be among such criteria.


> CSAM is a real and measurable problem

Well, I'd be curious to see how widespread CSAM is altogether, and especially how much WhatsApp, Messengers, and others are relevant for abusers. One thing I know about this topic is that the offenders are mostly close relatives. The thing I don't know, but intuitively, I'd not think that a close relative would take the risk of sending compromising messages on the smartphone of the victim. Not denying it never exists, but what are the numbers we are talking about? As neutral as I'm trying to think, it's very very hard to see a genuine intention into what the EU is doing


Abusers are often close relatives, family friends, or stereotypically trustworthy figures like pastors, but both child porn and sometimes children are trafficked.

I don't have stats off the top of my head, but it's possible, albeit labor-intensive, to make some inferences. Many child porn cases are prosecuted at the federal level because electronic communications are a kind of interstate commerce. By digging through PACER and similar legal databases, it's not too hard to build a corpus of criminal complaints. The really labor intensive part (although ML and other methods help to shorten it) is parsing the legalistic documents to extract information about which platforms most easily facilitate contact and negotiations between peers (CSAM enthusiasts) and targets (unwary kids preyed upon by unscrupulous adults).

It might also be possible to extract information on prosecutions resulting from a report or fortuitous discovery of CSAM-related activity, and that involving sting operations by law enforcement.


You know what would help for real? Social workers, parents empowering on things digital, educative initiatives for all stakeholders and proper case-by-case prosecution by prosecution authorities that are not under-financed and overwhelmed. But hey, this way is easier and gives total government control into hands of possibly bad government actors in the future.


You're absolutely right, and I've said as much in the past. Social work and educational solutions actually have a chance of making things better, actually giving children the tools and knowledge to protect themselves.

Law enforcement is only a tool for punishment of offenders, it in no way "protects children" because the offense has already occurred.

Anecdotal example, but this is seems to be the opposite of wanting to "protect children": https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-05-06/high-risk-paedophile-...


Law enforcement is only a tool for punishment of offenders, it in no way "protects children" because the offense has already occurred.

This shows an ignorance of how law enforcement operates in this space. Sometimes it is retroactive as you say, but often it is preemptive. For example, cops sometimes go looking on social media platforms for people soliciting CSAM, strike up a relationship, and talk people who take the bait into a physical meeting, at which point they pull out the badge and a warrant and examine the target's phone for evidence of existing possession. Another approach when potential crimes are reported (eg by a parent who discovers someone attempting to seduce their kid) is to silently take over the victim's role in the conversation and lure the would-be predator into a meeting, at which point the cuffs come out.

Anecdotal example, but this is seems to be the opposite of wanting to "protect children"

Yes, but what of it? This is a fallacy of composition, which assumes that failures or perverse legal outcomes are all part of some twisted masterplan designed to strip away freedoms. It's just cope, like the arguments in the wake of mass shootings that they are all secretly engineered by the FBI, based on the fact that the FBI or other law enforcement agencies sometimes fail to act on warning signs that seem obvious with hindsight.


Excellent points on #1, thanks for mentioning, I'll take those examples on board.

Regarding #2, I'm in no way conspiratorial about it, but it's a single data point in the opposite direction, which points to a lack of resources or a well thought out over-arching plan to solve the problem. None of that is conspiracy, it's reality, but it's also embarassing to 'policy', and should be pointed out as such. (I'm in no way saying they're trying to encourage, not at all).


> Law enforcement is only a tool for punishment of offenders, it in no way "protects children" because the offense has already occurred.

Offenders only ever do it once?


We do need better layered solutions here for sure. In the same way that we can't "defeat drug abuse" by jailing everyone, there needs to be a multitude of solutions at every interval to help. While I think privacy advocates are far more in favor of even looking for these solutions at all, it's also our duty to find and push these solutions because ultimately, others will not care. Optics are just too horrible, hence how swiftly these things move.

What's interesting is that recently privacy advocates have thankfully also recognized that "think of the children" can be a legitimate argument, and have been using it to fight against horrible solutions. But we really have to move past this and find better solutions, it can't be this endless tit for tat as "both sides" wind up losing.


While CSAM is indeed a problem, it's not a technical but a societal one. Fighting this on the technical side wont't work (other countries already tried and failed to do so).

As big of a problem as CSAM may be, failing to acknowledging that tech can't be the sole solution has to be either a sign of malice or incompetence.


There is no problem, there has never been a problem, and there never will be a problem.

It has always without exceptions been a moral panic encouraged and nurtured by established interests to support their urge for more and more control.


Paranoid bullshit, easily disproved by the fact of people serving very long prison sentences based on an abundance of evidence. These cases are generally not that hard to prosecute because offenders typically have a wildly distorted risk calculus and either incriminate themselves to someone they imagine shares their tastes, or because search warrants turn up a ton of physical evidence - sometimes quite literally: https://cbs12.com/news/local/child-pornography-arrest-paul-z...


Sure but it isn't distributed via voice calls on public voice networks...


I tend to ignore "think of the children" pleas from people who outsource the education and supervision of their children to the state or other "non-parent providers."


Right it's not like children are ever abused by family members.


Alas, we are outnumbered by servants of the machine ;)


In a few years, every pedophile will be able to create CSAM material indistinguishable from reality on their computer thanks to AI, therefore they won't need anymore to download it from the Internet. When this will occur, the powers that be could hardly use the protect-the-children argument to spy on citizens, since all material will be virtually created offline. I guess they're struggling to have draconian laws passed ASAP also for this reason.


I don't think this is a good argument as is, because it effectively justifies the draconian laws. Basically if they got all of them to stop taking actions in real life, and exclusively generate content on people who don't exist... then the laws have done their job. They've saved people from harm.


Such material is already criminalised in the UK.


> majority of the EU Council of Ministers seem to favour expanding the scanning of private messages to audio communications to detect child sexual abuse material

Please think of the children

Oh well


Do any of the EU countries have a legal history of having the right to privacy enshrined in law and custom?


You might be interested in Aritcle 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_8_of_the_European_Conv...). It was recently used to declare the UK's mass surveillance unlawful (https://dpglaw.co.uk/european-court-of-human-rights-declares...)


See also Articles 7 and 8 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (https://www.europarl.europa.eu/charter/pdf/text_en.pdf). (side note, the ECHR is why European countries have strong privacy laws since the '70s.)

The EDPS recently said that under the Charter, the infamous “Chat Control” would always be illegal in the EU: https://www.euractiv.com/section/law-enforcement/news/eu-wat....


Very interesting. Does this apply to the Dutch "dragnet" surveillance law too?

https://aboutintel.eu/update-dutch-dragnet-act/


In principle, yes. In practice, no. National security is a matter of the member states. Note that the right to privacy is also in the Dutch constitution. From the little I know, the oversight mechanism in the Netherlands seems to be working to some extent but there are still plenty of caveats:

https://aboutintel.eu/ctivd-bulk-datasets-held-by-intel-need...


Not that I'm aware of, although East Germany still has Stasi in living memory, which gives mass surveillance a tangibley sour aftertaste.


Yes. Also in not so delightful way.

https://www.investigate-europe.eu/en/2023/luxembourg-busines...

This is the case that shut down the public access to Companies House registry, as oligarch’s handyman was complaining access to companies ownership data violates the privacy of his businesses. Might be a net loss for the society in this case.


Like all "rights" in Europe, they are only rights when it's politically convenient.


This just proves that all communications need to be made E2EE in order to preserve privacy & security, with no carveouts for law enforcement: Any avenue that is carved out for the State will be used by malicious actors, both within the State (that don't want to leave any paper trails) and outside of the State.


What could possibly go wrong?


> What could possibly go wrong?

This could have normally be considered an idle comment.

Unfortunately, in today's world it has become part of a rule: "when any trend emerges, ask yourself: what could possibly go wrong".


Obligatory reminder: the goal of mass-surveillance is never to prevent terrorist acts or protect the children from predators. It is to have a dossier on everyone.




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