Discussion
1/6📍#ChatControl: Yesterday, EU lawmakers entered the final stage of negotiations ('trilogues') on the controversial #CSARegulation, aka Chat Control.
📣 EDRi has been advocating for years to make sure that this law tackles the severe crime of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) online without resorting to #MassSurveillance, breaking #encryption or compelling people to undergo intrusive age checks, all of which would have harmful consequences for people and communities.
2/6 Some of the most dangerous and techno-solutionist parts of the European Commission's original proposal have thankfully been addressed by the Council of the European Union and the European Parliament. But there's still a huge amount to fix in trilogues to make sure that any eventual law is compatible with the EU's #FundamentalRights and freedoms, and an ongoing risk of several major harms…
3/6 ⚠️ The Parliament and Council have both included strong protections for end-to-end encryption in their positions, but the European Commission and some EU Member States still seek systematic access to E2EE services through this law. Any final law must fully, expressly and equivocally uphold the integrity of E2EE services, otherwise innocent people, businesses, and even governments could be put at risk of digital security breaches
4/6 ⚠️ The final text could end up being really messy and complex, with providers forced to take the heaviest possible measures to avoid being non-compliant. This sledgehammer approach could force them to make poor and counter-productive design choices, and might also lead to a de-facto obligation for so-called "voluntary" scanning and widespread #AgeVerification, despite the risk of this doing more harm than good
5/6 ⚠️ Mass surveillance could present itself in two ways: 1) if the Council's preferred voluntary scanning regime is extended indefinitely, #BigTech companies could be allowed to scan the messages of users without any need for suspicion of CSAM crimes.
2) the Council also wants to make it mandatory for most or all private communications services (emails, Signal messages, WhatsApp, etc.) and app stores to use age verification or similar tools. This would have a huge chilling effect.
6/6 ⚠️ These are not the only issues still plaguing the law. Technically infeasible network blocking rules; unreliable scanning technologies; a creeping risk of excessive law enforcement powers over supposedly independent institutions; and many others remain.
🧐 Want to know the latest happenings on the CSA Regulation trilogues? EDRi is keeping our Document Pool up-to-date with all the official developments as well as our analyses: https://edri.org/our-work/csa-regulation-document-pool/
This is a small personal instance of Bonfire in the Fediverse.
