The EU will vote on Chat Control on 14 October. WhatsApp, Telegram and Signal may be forced to scan every message. Privacy at risk for 450 million Europeans.
Soon they could read the chats of European citizens. All. Every message on WhatsApp and every photo on Telegram. Not because you are suspected of something, but because you could be so according to the principle of “guilty until proven innocent”. I am 450 million European citizens which could be recorded and observed by algorithms that already control finance.
What is Chat Control
Is called Chat Controland it is the most controversial regulation that the European Union has ever discussed regarding privacy. The EU Council will meet on October 14th to vote on whether to force messaging services and providers to automatically scan each content that passes through their platforms. The declared objective is certainly noble, to combat online child pornography, but the method is that of Big Brother by George Orwell in his dystopian novel 1984.
The European proposal
The proposal officially named CSAR (Child Sexual Abuse Regulation)was presented in 2022 by the European Commissioner for Home Affairs, Ylva Johansson of the Swedish Social Democratic Party. The purpose is commendable, that is, to combat sexual abuse of minors by obliging services such as Whatsapp, Signal, Telegram and iMessage to automatically scan every content shared by users, text messages, photos, videos, links. If the system identifies suspicious child pornography content, the entire conversation would be forwarded to European authorities and law enforcement. Not just the single text or file therefore, but the entire exchange of messages in the chat.
Algorithms are wrong 7 times out of 10
A big problem arises precisely in the scanning. The IT security experts have raised serious doubts about the technology that would be used. The automatic recognition algorithms in fact they are considered very fallacious: the error rate is very high and according to estimates, i false positives they could vary between 50% and 75%. It means that a simple holiday video, rather than a jokey message or artistic image, could end up under the radar of authorities by mistake.
Goodbye to end-to-end encryption
To do this, theartificial intelligence which would analyze the contents upstream, i.e. directly on the users’ devices. This would get around that end-to-end encryption so dear to privacy. Will CathcartWhatsApp’s number one, explicitly attacked the EU presidency’s proposal on the social network X because it “violates end-to-end encryption, putting everyone’s privacy and security at risk”. It would therefore be the end of the message encryption system as we know it. Signala messaging app that places a lot of emphasis on privacy, has defined Chat Control as a malwarea malicious and harmful program, and promised that will leave the European market rather than implementing a mass surveillance system.
Voting and divisions in Europe
According to the data provided by the website Fight Chat Controlon the eve of the vote the situation hangs in the balance. There are twelve favorable countries: Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, France, Hungary, Ireland, Lithuania, Malta, Portugal, Romania and Spain. There are nine against: Austria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland and Slovenia.
But it’s the front of the undecided which could make a difference: there are seven countries that have not yet taken a definitive position and among these it stands out Italy which was initially favorable. Precisely this indecisiveness has postponed the vote which should have been held on Monday 14 October, no longer present on the agenda of EU ministers. For now.
For approval you need the qualified majoritythat is, at least 55% of the Member States (therefore at least 15) representing at least 65% of the community population.
The goal of protect minors is sacrosanct, but on October 14th we will know whether the member countries of the European Union will choose the protection of privacy or the road of control.
