Please also fight mandatory age verification with prison sentences. The European Parliament has already voted in favor of a law that mandates age verification for pornography with a one year prison sentence. It was included as a last minute amendment into this bill [1]. See "Amendment 186". It has been completely missed by news organizations and even interest groups.
The full accepted article reads: "Disseminating pornographic content online without putting in place robust and effective age verification tools to effectively prevent children from accessing pornographic content online shall be punishable by a maximum term of imprisonment of at least 1 year."
It's not law yet, as the first reading is now sent back to the Council of the European Union, but I don't think it's very likely it will get a second reading.
Maximum of at least one year? Is there some kind of award for how nonsensical a law can be?
throwaway89201 · 1h ago
Member states will implement this into national law. So in the case they will need to implement a maximum of one year or more (but not less). The final law as applied by a judge will just read "punishable by a maximum of [i.e.] fourteen months".
ryankrage77 · 1h ago
> maximum of one year or more
If the max is one year, it can't be more?
rkomorn · 1h ago
It sounds like it's "the maximum penalty must be at least 1 year", as in "your member state can't enact a law where the maximum penalty is less than 1 year".
At least that's how I read it, but it's confusing.
Aurornis · 1h ago
The maximum value in each instance must be at least one year.
demiters · 1h ago
That's not only asinine but also poorly worded. How is this getting approved?
dragonwriter · 1h ago
Its properly worded, as it is an EU law declaring atandards for national laws and the implementing national law must specify a penalty range where the maximum is at least one year (but can be more).
It seems worded poorly if you think of it as if the phrase was from a criminal law and not a law mandating and setting parameters for criminal laws.
W3zzy · 25m ago
Jup, it's a directive.
demiters · 1h ago
Ah, that makes sense.
lucideer · 3h ago
A little context here since this website is highly misleading:
- EU Council holds more power in Europe than EU Parliament
- EU Council is pushing this regulation
- this website misrepresents the positions of most members of EU Parliament - it shows "Supports" despite most of them being "Unknown"
Overall, while people should be encouraged to contact their MEPs, I suspect many are already very informed on this & strongly opposed. Whether Parliament will end up having enough power to stop it is a different question.
x775 · 2h ago
Ultimately, both the EU Council and the European Parliament must agree on legislation for it to pass. The Parliament acts as a co-legislator with equal legislative power in this process, effectively representing the citizens while the Council represents the member states governments. Both have to agree. In the case of Chat Control, Denmark, as the current EU Council Presidency, revived the proposal (after it previously failed to reach agreement during both the Belgian and Polish Presidency). In order for this to pass at the Council level, at least 15/27 member states must support it. If this were to happen, it would then reach the European Parliament and would have to be approved there as well. However, as support at the Council level seems greater than in previous renditions (supported further by Denmark's insistence on an expedited vote scheduled for October 14), it seems prudent to target beyond merely the Council-level.
lucideer · 1h ago
To be clear, I wasn't saying Parliament wouldn't have a say - mainly pointing out that the website's information about MEP's current position on the regulation is incorrect.
Nemo_bis · 44m ago
You mean the Council of the EU. The EUCO is a separate body. SCNR.
Came here to say the same thing, confused how a website like this can be made, the people behind it must have not understood how the EU works.
If Germany is listed as "Undecided" then this is in the Council. The 96 MPs are from a wide spectrum of parties and most of them will already be either for, or against this.
joks · 2h ago
The whole site has that vibe-coded-website look. I wonder if a lot of the information on the site was essentially hallucinated too.
Disposal8433 · 3h ago
I'm French and every idiot supports it, even the so-called left. There is nothing I can do except donate money every month to GrapheneOS (https://grapheneos.org/donate). Democracy is dead for me.
lucideer · 3h ago
Unfortunately this seems to be a bug in the website.
For any representatives that have no position / position unknown, rather than the website showing them as "Unknown" as you'd expect, it just assumes their position is the position of their government's EU Council representative supports this.
Many national representatives are aligned with opposition parties within their own country, and as such it's highly likely their position will deviate from that of their government, so this is a pretty bad misrepresentation. Highly misleading.
forty · 23m ago
If you value democracy, I suggest not to trust any random website you read. Of course the French left (at least EELV/LFI) is not going to support this. This should be obvious if you know a bit what ideas they are defending (them and the others too), which you should as well if democracy matters to you.
f_devd · 3h ago
If you're just looking at the website, do note that most (if not all) people are unconfirmed but show "supports" due to the leaked country position (hover over the pill/flag).
SilverElfin · 54m ago
The left and the right stopped being about liberal values (like traditionally liberal or whatever) at some point, which are the backbone of democratic societies. I don’t see how you can have democracy without the ability to freely communicate. And that means freedom of speech but also the right to anonymity and privacy.
Vinnl · 2h ago
That sounds like contacting your MEPs could at least be worth it. Usually when it comes to things like this, the parties that I'd consider voting for already vote the way I'd like them to do.
(In this case it's even better - my country opposes, even though the governing parties are not mine.)
JumpCrisscross · 1h ago
The original sin are ad-based social media.
Everyone (except China) failed to regulate that. So now we see overcorrection.
The solution is to regulate Meta and TikTok and YouTube. Until that is on the table we’ll get performative stupidity from both sides.
tatjam · 3h ago
Looking at the supporting members, this appears to be supported by "both parties" across many many countries, what a sad thing to unite over...
thaumasiotes · 1h ago
Note that chat control has been a top concern of governments since there were governments.
The Roman Empire banned private clubs, seeing them as a source of revolution.
medlazik · 2h ago
Not sure what you call the "so-called left", but the actual left (LFI) certainly doesn't support Chat Control
thrance · 1h ago
Yes, this makes no sense. No way they got 100% of every MPs to agree on this. They never agree on anything. I think the website took the fact that the country supports it and applied that position to each of its MPs.
OldfieldFund · 2h ago
probably they call "so-called left" the liberals
BlueTemplar · 1h ago
Nobody would call them "left", especially not during Macron's 2nd term, the Walkers (or whatever is their new moniker) have firmly solidified as liberals in the right-wing sense (rather than in the bottom-wing sense).
AnthonyMouse · 1h ago
Is there some way we can get people to abandon this entire premise?
You have a law that requires age verification. Does the right oppose this because they oppose government regulation? You have a law that spends more tax dollars on law enforcement, lobbied for by the police unions. Does the left support this because they support government spending and unions?
There is no consistency in their positions, it's all just whatever happens to be in their coalition right now and it changes over time.
Actually no, every MEP doesn't support it, the government's position is attributed to all MEP from the country, which is silly.
dabber21 · 3h ago
what are the arguments?
realusername · 3h ago
France is just very regressive when it comes to the internet, any laws which can make the situation worse is usually voted by all parties (see neighbouring rights or any anti-piracy laws), I don't think there's any real reasoning.
KennyBlanken · 3h ago
The country is predominantly Catholic. So both prudish views on sexual content, but also wanting to pretend sexual abuse by priests in their religion, and their religion protecting those priests, isn't the problem - nope, it's the interwebs creating child abusers. That is coupled with racist fear of terrorist attacks being committed by the African and middle eastern immigrant populations.
Sure are a lot of white elephants in the room with you...
hk__2 · 2h ago
I think you’re confusing France with Italy. France has had Simone de Beauvoir and still has a very strong feminist culture, had Mai 1968, has same-sex marriage since 2014 and 10 years later it was the first country in the world that added the right to aborption in its constitution; it has huge pride parades every year, not so long ago had an openly-gay Prime minister. It’s fine to talk about sex at work or with the family; you can see boobs on the cover of national newspapers and nobody talks about it because it’s perfectly fine.
rdm_blackhole · 2h ago
As a French person, let me tell you you are wrong.
French people mostly don't give a shit about religion and do not have any prudish views. We have many nudists beaches and women are regularly topless on the beach. Talking about sex if accepted in society and between friends and family.
So it's not about that at all.
What most French people are though is little children that need to be guided and protected by the state. Without the state they are lost. If you look at the news, the most recurring theme is: "why hasn't the government solved this problem for us poor souls? We are helpless, help us!"
Therefore French people accept the state and all that it encompasses. They have little protests here and there and sometime they succeed in making the state back down but in the end the state usually wins.
It's a form of learned helplessness and a very sad and toxic relationship between the French state and it's citizens.
No comments yet
realusername · 2h ago
There's some old influence from the religion for sure but it's nowhere as important as you think.
France is still one of the least religious countries in Europe (Czech Republic usually being the least religious and France in the second position) and people talk about sex openly like a normal subject even at work.
josh2600 · 1h ago
This is actually one of the major fights of our generation.
If signal/whatsapp/e2ee are desecrated, only criminals will have encryption for a short period of time until we all come to our senses and realize that some semblance of personal privacy is a human right.
IMHO, we should fight for the maximum amount of privacy possible within the context of a civil society.
In every generation there is a battle, sometimes quiet, other times a dull roar, and occasionally a bombastic. This battle is who can oversee who.
Surveillance should be the last resort of a free society.
Centigonal · 3h ago
In the US, we have government programs like PRISM and unchecked oligopolies that surveil us and use that information to identify dissent, sell us ads, and alter our behavior. In the EU, there are these initiatives to surveil us in the name of safety.
Is there any regime out there who's not trying to mass-surveil their citizens for one reason or another?
ragmodel226 · 3h ago
This is a defeatist and damaging attitude. It detracts from the core issue at hand, which is EU government forcing code being run in private messaging apps over data before it is encrypted. It defeats the security model of end to end encrypted messaging, and leads to a society that cannot trust its communications against government interference ever again.
One can criticize analysis of mass surveillance of metadata and encrypted channels, but this is something else.
protocolture · 32m ago
Australia already has this capability and is likely using it for 5 Eyes nations. Questioning the desire to surveil seems on topic when this is pretty much everywhere already.
SilverElfin · 53m ago
In the US, violations of civil rights that are performed by officials (like legislators) can be prosecuted under something called color of law. I think it is rarely done, if ever, but the justice department could do it. Maybe Americans need to start pushing their own representatives to call for such a case in situations where individual rights are violated.
Is there something like this in the EU, so that officials feel personal risk and liability for their actions in pushing this anti democratic policy?
nosioptar · 3h ago
I'm unaware of Sealand[0] engaging in surveillance against its citizen.
With only one citizen, it would seem that the government of Sealand must necessarily be watching everything he does at all waking hours.
JumpCrisscross · 1h ago
> Is there any regime out there who's not trying to mass-surveil their citizens for one reason or another?
The one where citizens don’t regress into comfortably lazy nihilism as a first response.
ncr100 · 1h ago
The Catholic Church is not for surveillance, afaik.
Join Vatican City!
dachris · 3h ago
Power wants to stay in power.
In a healthy society, citizens should always be wary of those in power and keep them on their toes, because power corrupts (and attracts already problematic characters).
Not driveling when they get thrown some crumbs or empty phrases ("child safety", "terrorism").
r33b33 · 2h ago
yeah, Japan
isaacremuant · 1h ago
> Is there any regime out there who's not trying to mass-surveil their citizens for one reason or another?
Covid authoritarian policies were hugely successful and supported by mainstream people by and large. Not enough protests. Not enough dissent.
Now politicians know they can turn the power knob as high as they want and nothing will happen. Less and less dissent will be allowed, just like during covid.
If you fail to learn that and denounce those and reclaim the freedoms for all, you're going to just whine into a smaller and smaller room.
JumpCrisscross · 1h ago
> Covid authoritarian policies were hugely successful and supported by mainstream people by and large. Not enough protests. Not enough dissent
America has been trashed not by Covid but by the precedence being set that partisan violence can and will be pardoned.
isaacremuant · 38m ago
I don't quite understand your point. I also meant covid policies. Not covid itself.
101008 · 3h ago
I was very pissed at this, and when I read this part I couldn't continue, it boiled my blood.
> *EU politicians exempt themselves from this surveillance under "professional secrecy" rules. They get privacy.
You and your family do not. Demand fairness.
amarcheschi · 3h ago
If it hasn't been changed, not only politicians but law enforcement officers too would be exempt
I thought there was an English Wikipedia page but there isn't, translate it
zwnow · 3h ago
What a surprise, they are also paid a handsome pension after having worked in EU parliament for a few years, 4 I think. Most of us have to work for 40+ years and dont even get good retirement money
jaharios · 2h ago
A lot of actual pedophiles will be exposed if it was used on politicians, we don't want that.
echelon · 2h ago
While we're talking about corrupt politicians, why is this all happening all at once?
America, Great Britain, and the EU are all creating tracking, monitoring, and censorship regulations. All at the same time.
We're turning the internet into the 1984 inevitability it was predicted to become.
We need a Bill of Rights against this. But the public is too lay to push for this. Bolstering or eroding privacy rights will never happen in the direction we want, only the one we don't. It's so frustrating.
I think the UK (and EU) have been at this for a while. The UK pushed for the Data Retention Directive in the EU in the mid 2000s that required ISPs to save all the websites you visit. This was eventually ruled to be illegal, but it was still in force for several years.
Security is worth half a shit these days and Five Eyes can't remotely access everybody's phone without it getting noticed by people. So they need to keep transport insecure.
moffkalast · 2h ago
I would not be surprised if it's the US pressuring everyone else. Thiel is probably salivating to get a deal for Palantir to implement it.
That said, the UK doesn't need much convincing in this regard I suppose, they've always had their fair share of extreme laws along these lines and Leyen has personally dreamt of this for ages.
ncr100 · 1h ago
Palantir CEO interview about the future was straight up "YOU ALL are MEAT. Only I matter."
F that noise.
api · 2h ago
For over a decade now there’s been a huge global shift toward authoritarianism, and to some extent it’s grassroots. My speculation is that this is a time of unprecedented change and that scares people. We also have aging populations due to lower birth rates and older people tend (on average) toward nostalgic reactionary politics.
ncr100 · 1h ago
Yes.
It's a tremendous opportunity, presently.
Power is never before so easily gotten.
Fight: Collaborate, Empathize, Reject division.
Teever · 2h ago
Authoritarians will always try and pull this kind of shit. It's just what they do. The bigger question you should be asking is where's the coordinated pushback?
Where are the celebrities and public figures taking a stand against this?
Where are the grassroots organizations organizing protests and promoting sousveillance programs against the authoritarians who want to take away our rights and privacy?
The reason why this is all happening at once is because there's no resistance to it.
Until there's meaningful resistance you're just gonna see authoritarian policies keep snowballing.
jaharios · 38m ago
The pandemic showed that govs can push what they want with minimal resistance and having the public on each other throats. People are also fatigued and isolated more than ever, perfect time to seize total control.
userbinator · 36m ago
Where are the celebrities and public figures taking a stand against this?
They're afraid of losing their job or being painted as someone who supports terrorists, pedophiles, or other criminals.
r33b33 · 2h ago
They are gearing for WW3 and population control.
This is obvious.
Get out of EU.
Now.
cloudhead · 2h ago
This.
einarfd · 54m ago
That they exempt politicians is basically admitting that the security problems that detractors bring up is true, and is something that should be used against them.
After all exempting some police, that work on investigating child molesting, from the scanning, that is understandable.
Exempting prime minster Mette Frederiksen, on the other hand. Means either that they understand that it undermines security, or that she or some other top politicians are child molester. So which is it?
lordnacho · 3h ago
Can't make this shit up.
The Danish government (currently holding the rotating chair) also raised the pension age for everyone. Other than themselves.
But also, how does this get implemented? What's stopping me from using, say, Signal, which being OSS would likely have a single line I could comment out and compile for myself?
How would I get busted for that? Or I could get clever and have AI generate some random chat text to send to the government while I send the actual text to my friends?
whatevaa · 3h ago
You would get labeled a "potential criminal". See some comment from police labelling Graphene OS users as criminals.
Steganography exists and is undefeatable, though very low bandwith.
shark1 · 3h ago
It's like any other crime. They cannot stop you from stealing, for example.
By doing it, you will not be a lawful citizen.
It doesn't say how AFAIK, although it's been a few months from when I read the original proposal. If I'm not wrong it would delegate that to service providers - the organizations managing the apps, telegram, meta, whatever the name of the foundation for the signal app is ecc
rdm_blackhole · 3h ago
This is only the first step in the process. First they will force all messaging/email providers to implement the scanning. Those who refuse or decide to leave the EU as Signal said they would do, would end up being unlisted from Google Play or the Apple (EU) app store.
Then the second phase is coming by 2030. Read about the ProtectEU (what a fucking ridiculous name) proposal which will mandate the scanning on device and basically record everything you do on your device.
This will be forced on Apple and other manufacturers directly.
pakitan · 1h ago
> Read about the ProtectEU (what a fucking ridiculous name) proposal which will mandate the scanning on device and basically record everything you do on your device.
Where can we read about that? The official documents are quite vague and I don't see anything as specific as mandatory device scanning.
cbeach · 2h ago
ProtectEU sounds incredibly dark. Do you have a source for the information regarding on-device scanning? I had a look but only found the bureaucrat-speak overview and they didn’t discuss details.
dachris · 3h ago
Hopefully it doesn't get implemented, but obviously they could force OS providers to implement this in Android and iOS.
rdm_blackhole · 2h ago
Even if you compile your own version of Signal, will your friends do it too? Will your grandma/grandpa do it as well? It only takes one person in the chain to be compromised by using the "real" app and then all your efforts would be defeated because now your messages have been exposed by this other person unknowingly.
bqmjjx0kac · 2h ago
Do phones have trusted execution environments? I suppose you could require the recipient provide attestation that it's running the expected binary. Of course, this is pointless if the hardware manufacturer shares their root keys with the government.
JoshTriplett · 2h ago
> the "real" app
The backdoored app will hopefully not be called Signal, since Signal themselves would never do this. I hope they own a trademark on it and could enforce it against anyone who would try to upload a backdoored version under their name.
People will use what is most convenient. If tomorrow Signal leaves the EU, WhatsApp will happily take its place and will happily enforce the scanning and everyone will just have to fall in line.
What good is it if you are the only one of your family who has the only "uncompromised" app on your phone? How will you talk to them? Any message you send will be scanned on the other end.
That also applies if you have friends overseas. Your friend from Japan/US will be compromised as well.
ncr100 · 1h ago
So stop them.
CM30 · 2h ago
Yeah this really annoys me, because it appears to show that any pretense that the law applies to everyone equally is disappearing fast.* If it at least affected politicians you could write it off as "idiotic idea that wasn't thought through in the slightest", but here it's clear that they have some idea how stupid and dangerous the law is, and see themselves as worth exempting from it instead.
This is, what, the fifth time in ten years they try to pass shit like this?
9dev · 3h ago
They only need to succeed one time. People are generally preoccupied with a lot of other things right now, so maybe this is their lucky shot…
impossiblefork · 2h ago
They actually did succeed once, with the data retention directive. That got annulled by the CoJEU.
zubspace · 3h ago
It's a shitty system, if one side just needs to succeed one time while the other side needs to succeed over and over again.
What really should be done is to disallow proposals, which are kinda the same. Once a mass surveillance proposal like this is defeated, it shouldn't be allowed to be constantly rebranded and reintroduced. We need a firewall in our legislative process that automatically rejects any future attempts at scanning private communications.
CM30 · 1h ago
I wonder if it'd be possible to fix a lot of these issues by having a constitution with damn near impossibly strict standards for changing it that rely on the entire population agreeing (or close to it)?
So there might be a right to privacy or freedom of speech enshrined in law, and the only way to change it would be for 90+% of the population to agree to change it. That way, it'd only take a minority disagreeing with a bad law to make it impossible to pass said law. Reactionaries and extremists would basically be defanged entirely, since they'd have to get most of their opponents to agree with any changes they propose, not just their own followers.
pessimizer · 3h ago
> What really should be done is to disallow proposals, which are kinda the same.
This very much exists in a lot of parliamentary rules authorities, but it's usually limited to once per "session." They just need to make rules that span sessions that raise the bar for introducing substantially similar legislation.
It can easily be argued that passing something that failed to pass before, multiple times, should require supermajorities. Or at least to create a type of vote where you can move that something "should not" be passed without a supermajority in the future.
It is difficult in most systems to make negative motions. At the least it would have to be tailored as an explicit prohibition on passing anything substantially similar to the motion in future sessions (without suspending the rules with a supermajority.)
I don't know as much about the French Parlement's procedure as I would like to, though.
Telemakhos · 3h ago
Is there no way to codify a negative right, like “The right of the European people to privacy in their communications and security in their records through encryption shall not be infringed?” Negative rights reserved to the people should be more important than positive laws granting power to the government.
No comments yet
Stevvo · 2h ago
This rule can really hurt. e.g. Theresa May tried passing a deal to keep the UK in the Customs Union. The speaker wouldn't allow it because the same deal had previously been rejected, even though she now had the support for it in the house.
KennyBlanken · 3h ago
cough Patriot Act cough
...which Republicans swore up and down was temporary and yet, oddly, kept getting renewed wirth no evidence whatsoever it was necessary to stop a planned terrorist attack or that it would have stopped the WTC attacks themselves.
I bet 90% of the population or more has no idea that the Patriot Act was dumped and replaced with the nearly identical FREEDOM Act. Which took multiple tries to pass because they knew if they just kept hammering away, they'd eventually get it passed.
Yeah, they called a wildly invasive domestic spying bill the "freedom" act....
dlcarrier · 2h ago
It's not even a partisan issue; spying on the constituency is one of few issues that has broad bipartisan support.
You could vote for a libertarian, but good luck.
swayvil · 2h ago
The arrival of AI has made mass surveillance pass a certain threshold. Now we're just a step away from aristocrat heaven.
ncr100 · 1h ago
Yup super easy to moderate, monitor, and manipulate.
Watchlist? Easy.
Mislead? Easy.
We need to isolate this bad behavior ASAP.
ath3nd · 4h ago
They generally don't and won't stop until there are real repercussions for that, like losing your political career/being canceled in society over voting for it.
ncr100 · 1h ago
Yup.
Having empathy for your neighbor, and working with those whom you disagree, are precursors. This gives power.
Then using power to enact consequences for businesses and governments (the people therein), fixes the problem.
mantas · 3h ago
The problem is people behind the curtains will just pick another figure head. And we can’t even get the names who want to get rid of privacy. Since names of people pushing it were redacted for their privacy :D
morkalork · 3h ago
When the people orchestrating something like this can hide behind a veil of anonymity as well as bestow exemptions from monitoring upon the political class, it looks deeply wrong and conspiracy worthy. :D indeed.
Geezus_42 · 3h ago
The exemptions for politicians is straight out of 1984.
thfuran · 1h ago
They weren’t exempt in 1984.
idiotsecant · 3h ago
The fascist, autocratic impulse is a big in the human firmware and will never go away. We exist constantly balanced on the razor edge precipice because we are capable of little else. Self-governing humans are not a stable system.
swayvil · 2h ago
Serfs and lords is pretty stable. But ya I get yr point.
mantas · 3h ago
As Juncker, ex president of European Commision said, you keep trying till it passes at some point. Good luck revoking it later…
uncircle · 3h ago
Ah, the marvels of modern democracy. No serious way to enact change, politicians still do whatever the hell they want, and we still believe that voting for someone else will change things.
It’ll soon be like the UK, that if you campaign against this kinda stuff, the party in power publicly calls you a paedophile. Because only people with something to hide want privacy.
Privacy is a losing proposition. Governments have the perfect trojan horse (child safety) so it’s only a matter of time before massive surveillance is the norm.
calvinmorrison · 3h ago
it effects lots of organizations. the left contingent of the PCUSA basically did the same for a decade to change rules. When they finally got the language passed it caused a large rift.
The difference is that one is not obligated to be part of a presbytery and can leave. The presbytery doesn't have guns.
croes · 3h ago
People don’t want change.
If really someone gets the power who wants to change things they fight them too.
People want that everything stays the same. Problem is climate change and other problems make change inevitable.
mantas · 2h ago
People don’t want change, yet politicians are pushing sleazy changes left and right.
Change like straws ban and attached caps? Such change, wow.
charcircuit · 3h ago
You can keep trying to revoke it until it passes too.
mantas · 2h ago
Yeah, right. I wonder if revokers would have same privacy as those who try to pass it…
kratom_sandwich · 3h ago
Who are the organizations fighting chat control which one could support with a donation?
Really ironic that Britain left the EU, but is even further ahead down this road. British humour I guess.
vaylian · 2h ago
The chat control bill also has age verification to identify child users.
mustaphah · 2h ago
The EU: proudly defending human rights… unless you're trying to send a private message.
alphazard · 2h ago
So what is the real solution? Meaning the solution that an individual could use themselves, without further coordination, to insulate themselves from this policy. Is it an Android distribution? Jailbreaking? Custom builds?
vaylian · 2h ago
The real solution is to stop the law while it is still being negotiated.
alphazard · 39m ago
If the law was passed, would there still be things you could do to insulate yourself from the effects of the law?
If so, that is the real solution, because it works in all cases.
ncr100 · 1h ago
In America our judicial system is sleeping and also overtly supporting anti democratic laws.
HelloUsername · 1h ago
You ask a valid and clear question, sadly no one yet properly responded :( I'll try: using an app that can communicate without ever connecting to the internet? Such as: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id6748584483
When (rational) people make decisions they weigh the possible rewards of success against the possible costs of failure. We are in a situation where the costs are virtually zero ("oh no, we have to try again in 6 months!") while the rewards are immense: the potential to consolidate even more power to the rich and powerful elite.
It shouldn't be surprising that this happens again and again, and they only need to succeed once. Social movements of the past understood this well. They increased the costs to such an extent that they couldn't be ignored.
Look at the movements that brought forth societal change in the past and imitate them. I can't think of one that didn't have an "extremist" wing that was willing to target the decision makers were it hurt: economic output (eg. strikes or sabotage) and violence.
thesdev · 2h ago
The individual MEPs' positions are wrong, it's not 1:1 with the national government's position as the website suggests.
nomilk · 2h ago
Laws generally recognise the sanctity of privacy - for example, so much as looking at someone for too long can be deemed sexual assault in some jurisdictions - yet law makers wish to legislate they be able to view everyone's nudes (and much more)! Weird contradiction.
andrewinardeer · 1h ago
Can someone explain how they could read my e2e Signal chat messages to my wife about what I'm cooking for dinner?
Can someone explain how they could read my e2e Sessions chat message sent via TOR to my wife about what I'm cooking for dinner?
Genuinely curious. Can those that are in power break this encryption?
danielheath · 1h ago
They can fine apple and google for offering signal in their app stores, until nobody has it installed.
That doesn’t break your comms today - but later, you replace your phone, can you get a current copy of the app?
layer8 · 44m ago
Not quite. It would be illegal for Signal to continue operating in the EU if they don’t implement the required scanning functionality. And Signal has already stated that they’d rather leave the EU.
rkomorn · 1h ago
The idea isn't to break encryption, it's to have apps implement client-side scanning "pre-encryption".
ymir_e · 1h ago
Definitely wouldn’t break the encryption itself.
I think the way it could work is to send a letter to each of the messaging apps saying that they are now legally required to use the EU’s encryption keys and make the messages available to the EU.
Then they would make it so that the apps that don’t comply are not available in the app stores by pressuring google and apple respectively.
I think this is the reason why for example telegram is not end to end encrypted by default - as some regions require them to be able to access users info.
Software you’re using on your own wouldn’t be effected, but wouldn’t necessarily be legal either.
People who are technically savvy could get around it, but the vast majority of people just assume that their private messages are private.
protocolture · 30m ago
The app that decrypts the message, will have the capability to provide that message, now decrypted, to the government.
layer8 · 51m ago
The proposed regulation is about imposing requirements on service providers, as defined by the Digital Services Act, for messaging and other services, effectively requiring them to implement backdoors in their software.
Purely P2P communication isn’t affected.
ivanjermakov · 1h ago
Making it illegal to use "non-compliant" e2ee services and prosecuting those who does. Realistically, they couldn't, but could ban such apps in EU stores, making them less popular.
They can break encryption by stealing keys from your device, or by pwning your device, or by introducing backdoor into the chat client for every user.
zbentley · 1h ago
No, but many political figures have proposed banning the distribution/possession/operation of tools (e.g. Signal, Tor) which can be used to circumvent surveillance.
mettamage · 1h ago
So as a Dutchie that opposes this, is there still something for me to do? The Netherlands opposes this, so... should I sway them to oppose it even more? Not really sure what my role should be.
Hello! I made this website. Thank you for sharing.
I appreciate all the feedback, and have implemented a few changes. A few points worth accentuating to avoid any misunderstandings. It is correct that the current proposal indeed is at the Council level, introduced as a high-priority item by the Danish Presidency. It is not yet with the Parliament. This is important as both need to be in agreement for any legislation to be adopted into European law. The first two sections of the website thus summarises the level of support at Council level. The source of this data strictly follows leaked documents from a July 11th 2025 meeting of the Council's Law Enforcement Working Party (LEWP) [0], originally reported by [1] and subsequently summarised by [2]. The next meeting for LEWP is scheduled for September 12th [3], shortly after most MEPs return from vacation.
As noted in another comment, the Council level requires at least 15/27 member states to support it. Should this happen, it would then reach the Parliament, pending approval. However, as support at the Council level seems greater than in previous renditions (supported further by Denmark's insistence and confidence on an expedited vote scheduled for October 14 [4]), it seems prudent to target beyond merely the Council-level. This is the intended goal of the third section of the website.
I see a few comments here suggesting that it would be better to label MEPs yet to respond as "Unknown". I initially decided to have MEPs inherit the position of their government, in part because I (a) wanted to encourage MEPs making a statement and clarifying their stance (while some have in the past, circumstances have changed with this version of the legislation); and (b) wanted to encourage a firm opposition at the Parliament level, ideally before the Council vote. However, I recognise how this can be perceived as being misleading. As such, I have updated the appearance such that pending a response, the label reads "Unknown" while the border indicates the presumed stance of the MEP to be that of their government.
I appreciate the interest and feedback: thank you. Ultimately, the goal with this website really is to raise awareness that the proposed legislation, once again, has been resurrected and is making progress. The attention this thread has garnered is greatly appreciated. As all MEPs have been contacted to confirm their stance, I expect responses to arrive in the coming days and weeks, allowing the overview to soon accurately reflect the personal opinions of each MEP.
In the meantime, I would still encourage you to contact your MEPs such that they are aware of your concerns.
Hello,
it's not working for me, "send emails" fails with:
Uncaught TypeError: Cannot read properties of undefined (reading 'selectedMeps')
at Object.showSelectionFeedback (takeAction.js:546:41)
at Object.selectAllRepresentatives (takeAction.js:542:14)
at HTMLButtonElement.onclick ((index):1:13)
ncr100 · 1h ago
WTFF. Fight !!
Why is this Thought Policing tolerated?
Are we so End Stage Growth Economy that EVERY power broker see now as the time to employer (IC)Enforcement?
Gestapo much, anyone?
isaacremuant · 1h ago
> Why is this Thought Policing tolerated?
Because it's what everyone and their mother was calling for during covid to fight the dangerous <label> for opposing authoritarian policies.
Because we have to stop Russia, the republicans, extremists, anti war protests who are actually just <label>, because we have to protect kids, or fight racism...
It was all bullshit and people loved it. Now it's almost too late. If you don't reject it all and fight authoritarianism regardless of party alignment, you're not going to change any of this.
setnone · 3h ago
Excellent resources section [0] including "Digital technologies as a means of repression and social control" study from European Parliament
It's impressive how governments never quit trying to implement this harmful idea.
latexr · 2h ago
We do need to take action, but be mindful the data as presented isn’t yet entirely accurate. Note the text on the website:
> Notice: The positions shown here are based on leaked documents from a July 11th, 2025 meeting of the EU Council's Law Enforcement Working Party (…) The icons next to each name show whether we are displaying their confirmed personal stance or their country's official Council position. This information is updated regularly as new responses come in.
In other words, take care to not harass an MEP whose position is unconfirmed. Be respectful in your opposition of the law but don’t be accusatory if you’re not certain of their stance.
Looking around the website, I can only find four MEPs whose stance was confirmed, all in Denmark. Even for the undecided and opposing countries, every listed stance is based on the stance of the country, not each individual. They should really make this clearer; displaying misinformation could really hurt the cause.
ncr100 · 1h ago
Make their job more servant to the public, and less profitable in the near and far term.
Regulate the politicians.
croisillon · 3h ago
nitpick but the number of MEPs is not the same in some countries (Slovakia, Spain and a few more) on the summary card and on the representative list
midasz · 2h ago
As disappointing as my national government (NL) has been and still is, at least our MEPs oppose this dragon of a proposal.
futurecat · 3h ago
Thank you for sharing.
cobbzilla · 3h ago
Is Europe sliding into feudalism? The impression is that the government/megacorp complex are the lords, everyone else should accept their place as a serf and do whatever they’re told.
grunder_advice · 3h ago
Europe never abandoned the elitist mindset of a ruling elite lording it over the masses.
RickS · 3h ago
This video by Benn Jordan makes the case that yes, traditional capitalism and empowerment by way of ownership are eroding in favor of a rent-seeking subscription economy. This economy requires continuous payment for participation with services that are not only merely loaned to us, but are loaned under the constant threat of banishment if we fail to contort ourselves to comply with nebulous, ever changing terms set by orgs that don't care about us. One such contortion is the agreement to be surveilled at all times.
Where is the difference to the US, China or the UK?
Governments often try that kind of nonsense. Usually against organized crime, terrorism, child abuse.
But in the end it’s just used for the heavy crimes like copyright infringement
cobbzilla · 3h ago
The US, at least, has a Bill of Rights that would make this illegal, it would definitely violate the 4th Amendment and maybe the 1st too.
cobbzilla · 3h ago
That said, it’s not all roses in the US. There are many backdoors the government uses like issuing subpoenas to tech companies to get their data. Sometimes (like the notorious NSLs, National Security Letters) the order is secret and the company can’t even talk about it. This is also why the Snowden revelations were significant— arguably what the NSA is doing (mass, untargeted surveillance) is illegal, but so far (iirc) courts have said nobody has standing to challenge it. Various groups are still trying.
NitpickLawyer · 3h ago
The 1st, 4th and 5th have been repeatedly and systematically weakened both in practice and through the courts though.
1st - gag orders issued by secret courts, no trial, no apeal, can't even talk about it (can't even talk about the gag orders themselves, basically a gag order on a gag order). We only found out about it because Yahoo (out of all of them, the least you'd think would fight this) briefly tried to fight it. All the top CEOs got them. Yahoo briefly tried to fight it at some point and some court docs got out, but it wasn't much.
4th - multiple cases of confiscating cash without a trial, probable cause or anything of the sort. It's called "civil forfeiture", it's been done at both state and federal level, and it's so insanely full of mental gymnastics that at some point they tried to argue in court that "the person is not suspected of anything, the money is suspected of a crime". Bananas.
5th - there's a case where an executive was caught up in some investigation, and she was being held in contempt (jailed) over not divulging an encryption password. I haven't checked on the case in a while, but the idea of holding someone in contempt for so long defeats the purpose, and the idea of having to divulge passwords vs. having to provide a safe combination was apparently lost on the courts.
cobbzilla · 1h ago
You might not like this example, but the relatively recent evolution of 2nd Amendment jurisprudence, significantly strengthening gun rights, is the result of many impassioned, dedicated groups, lobbying the public and the government for decades.
The lesson is: stay active, stay vocal, stay in the media, and prepare for a very long haul. And file lots of lawsuits challenging everything!
userbinator · 43m ago
From what I've seen, the US also has a more "rebellious" culture than the EU, for lack of a better term; laws are viewed less as an absolute and the population is far more willing to break them if the consequences are perceived as minor. This is bipartisan; examples that come to mind include: electing a convicted felon, helping illegal immigrants stay in the country, and going 10 over the speed limit.
impossiblefork · 2h ago
The EU also has laws that make it illegal. It annulled a previous law with some of these provisions, the so-called Data Retention Directive.
rwyinuse · 3h ago
I'm not convinced the US will even have fair elections a couple of years from now. Do those amendments really matter, when those in power are doing everything they can to break down the rule of law, and turn the country into yet another autocracy?
EU may be sliding towards feudalism, but America is definitely farther down that road than we are. Current administration's relationship with tech billionaires is a concrete proof of that. I have no faith in politicians of either part of the world.
9dev · 2h ago
It takes a firm believe to still pretend the bill of rights would be adhered to. You have a convicted criminal as president with ties to child traffickers, taking foreign bribes on live TV, scamming voters with crypto, while punishing universities for teaching the wrong things and imprisoning people without due process for having the wrong opinion.
All the while SCOTUS elevated him above the law; now he actually could shoot somebody on fifth ave and he’d really not have to fear prosecution.
Are you sure you want to make this point?
Nifty3929 · 3h ago
I hope you're right.
croes · 3h ago
The EU countries also have constitutions with laws that make that illegal.
Still they try because there is always an exception that allows breaking those laws.
Chat control isn’t something the EU invented, they tried to implement CSAM in Apple devices and the whole chat control thing in the EU was heavily lobbied by Thorn
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorn_(organization)
kodisha · 22m ago
Oh no....
I went deep into this rabbit hole and did a lot of reading on how this org is pushing it's agenda in EU.
I hate this Hollywood idiots with burning passion.
pessimizer · 3h ago
> The EU countries also have constitutions with laws that make that illegal.
I don't think they do. They have constitutions that guarantee "Freedom of Speech" or "Expression," but don't define those terms in any way. I don't know that any of them lack legally prohibited political speech laws.
I feel the US was the origin of this "Hate Speech" nightmare that has been growing to encompass all of Western politics over the past 30 years, but the irony is that you can do slurs all day long in the US, to anybody you want, whenever you want. You will probably be ejected from the premises, though. In the US, the speech still has to be connected to a crime. In the EU, the speech itself is the crime.
lawn · 3h ago
The administration and the people will just shrug and move on, like they've done with all the other crap they've shrugged at.
ahoka · 3h ago
The difference is that PRISM was done as a black op, and this is out in the open.
ronsor · 3h ago
The UK is politically, culturally, and geographically close to Europe.
China has always been authoritarian (and hyper-centralized).
The US is working hard to copy bad ideas from authoritarians, but can't do it in exactly the same way, otherwise the ability to criticize the EU, UK, and China is lost.
pmlnr · 3h ago
> The UK is politically,
Europe generally has constitutions, and not precedence laws, which is a massive difference.
> culturally
Debatable. As a Hungarian, living in the UK.
> and geographically close to Europe
This one is true.
rrr_oh_man · 3h ago
> The UK is politically, culturally, and geographically close to Europe.
Closer than to the US?
I'm not sure about the first two. The latter is also debatable, at least from the UK's point of view. Ireland feels closer to Europe than the UK does.
octo888 · 3h ago
> The latter is also debatable
Only in terms of perception or semantics or applying a huge negative weighting to a bit of water and ignoring boats, trains and planes exist. But then you say...
> Ireland feels closer to Europe
So are you slyly conflating Europe and the EU?
Some crazy person might say this is really subtle "UK isn't part of Europe" propaganda similar to that in the lead of up Brexit
peanut_merchant · 3h ago
I get that maybe you meant culturally, but Ireland is a member of the EU whereas the UK is no longer. This forces a tighter alignment so makes your point about Ireland redundant.
The UK has continuously been pulled between it's dying imperialist vision of itself as a world power, it's close but conflicted ties with the US, and it's similarly close and conflicted ties with the EU.
Barrin92 · 3h ago
>Closer than to the US?
Much closer. It's a unitary state with a monarchy and parliamentary sovereignty, it's highly centralized economically and culturally. It's more European than much of Europe. Post war Germany, republican and decentralized economically is structurally more like the US than Britain. The only reason people in the US tend to identify with Britain is Anglo-Protestant identitarianism.
Britain in reality operates a lot like France or Russia, an overwhelmingly strong capital and grand historical old world nationalism with relatively weak constitutional or formal limits on government.
pmlnr · 3h ago
I don't remember the link to the essay that defined public, private, and secret information. Essentially it said that public is ok for anyone to hear, private is something that shouldn't concern others, whereas secret is something that needs to be kept under wraps.
Under these terms most of what we're protecting with encryption is private - finances, health records, etc. I shouldn't concern others.
Sadly, it does, because the world is full of pieces of shite people who want dynamic pricing on health insurance based on medical information, and all the similar reasons, for example. (Note: I'm from Europe. The while insurance system that's in place in the UK is disgusting, and it's nowhere even remotely close to the pestilence of the US system.)
I'm conflicted with the whole encryption topic. We initially needed CPU power for it, now we have hardware, but that means more complicated hardware, and so on. We now have 47 days long certificates because SeKuRiTy, and a system that must be running, otherwise a mere text website will be de-ranked by Google and give you a fat *ss warning about not being secure. But again, we "need" it, because ISPs were caught adding ads to plain text data.
Unless there are serious repercussions on genuinely crappy people, encryption must stay. So the question is: why is nobody thinking about strong, enforceable laws about wiretapping, altering content, stealing information that people shouldn't have, etc, before trying to backdoor encryption?
tough · 3h ago
you cannot enforce law globally online
there's no internet police
pessimizer · 3h ago
You didn't even need the word "online." There's no global police.
rendall · 3h ago
The landing page really should have an open graph image! It would help with sharing and promotion.
isaacremuant · 1h ago
Sure. Fight it. And also Remember this moment next time you're calling people conspiracy theorists because your party politician or mainstream news says so.
Next time think twice before calling people "freedumb" lovers and otherwise label them as Nazis, deniers, -ism, terrorism apologist, foreign government agents and more which is the typical attack when people fight for civil rights and freedoms.
It's always placing them on a false spectrum and assuming the worst.
Now you get to enjoy your authoritarian utopia. All for the greater good.
rdm_blackhole · 3h ago
This is the kind of shit that makes my blood boil. Privacy for thee not for me. The EU is not worth saving if this this is the kind of crap they pull. Fuck all the politicians behind this!
9dev · 2h ago
No, that’s the worst conclusion to draw. The EU is the only hope we have if we don’t want to become a toy for the US and China.
We need to save the EU from these people!
0x000xca0xfe · 2h ago
They already see us as a toy. Even Russia can't take EU serious.
We could have economic and military cooperation without this circus.
It's not even actually democratic and veto powers of tiny countries like hungary have turned common foreign policy into a joke.
actionfromafar · 2h ago
Wasn't Ireland threatened with not being allowed in (a hypothetical) EU 2.0 at some point, unless they backed down on some issue.
gardenhedge · 2h ago
there's no 'saving' the EU imo. I would consider voting to exit if given the opportunity
9dev · 2h ago
To what end though? What is your country’s opinion worth globally without the EU? It’s not that I like the current state of affairs, but the alternative is so much worse.
0x000xca0xfe · 1h ago
If not being in the EU is so awful, you should tell the Swiss about it. They must have missed it. /s
On a serious note, I think EU was a good idea but it has decayed a lot, especially after how the Greek crisis was handled and because of multiple legal design flaws. It needs a big restructuring, otherwise it will continue to decline and be used as a dumping ground for unpopular laws like Chat Control.
r33b33 · 2h ago
Leave the EU. Let them rot.
_Algernon_ · 2h ago
Genuinely curious where you would suggest going. The US isn't better and has been doing this shit since the patriot act.
r33b33 · 1h ago
Thailand, Japan, Philippines, El Salvador, Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, Kazakhstan. There are a lot of options. But absolutely leave the EU, UK or USA and let them all suffer in their own self-induced dystopian nightmare.
_Algernon_ · 1h ago
Moving to most of those countries would instantly at least 5x (Colombia would be 30x!) my chance of getting murdered (and I assume increase my risk of being the victim of other violent crimes similarly). Not to mention that suggesting El Salvador — a country that has imprisoned 1.7 % of its population, many without being convicted in a court of law — is a truly laughable suggestion.
r33b33 · 1h ago
Being murdered is at least honest aggression. Being surveilled like that is insidious and sneaky and worse in many aspects. El Salvador super safe now, just don't wear tattoos.
ukprogrammer · 2h ago
HN applauds this vibe-coded “privacy” site yet condemns decentralized messaging.
States control what’s centralized; incentives ensure they keep doing so.
Protesting it is like arguing with a thermostat—it can’t hear you, and it’s built to tighten control.
As technologists, we have a lot more power than we realise.
(Yes, I’m speaking to the blob, but the Venn overlap of anti-crypto and pro-this seems big.)
drapado · 2h ago
Genuely curious. What would the problem be if it was vibe-coded? It's an easy to read site that succeeds in communicating what it wants.
ukprogrammer · 1h ago
there's no problem with it being vibe-coded
The point is that the site, contacting your local MEP, and all the discussion in this thread, is pointless to affect some kind of durable societal change
Pointing out that it's vibe-coded just emphasises that all of the above actions are just low-effort cope
The full accepted article reads: "Disseminating pornographic content online without putting in place robust and effective age verification tools to effectively prevent children from accessing pornographic content online shall be punishable by a maximum term of imprisonment of at least 1 year."
It's not law yet, as the first reading is now sent back to the Council of the European Union, but I don't think it's very likely it will get a second reading.
[1] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/TA-10-2025-011...
If the max is one year, it can't be more?
At least that's how I read it, but it's confusing.
It seems worded poorly if you think of it as if the phrase was from a criminal law and not a law mandating and setting parameters for criminal laws.
- EU Council holds more power in Europe than EU Parliament
- EU Council is pushing this regulation
- this website misrepresents the positions of most members of EU Parliament - it shows "Supports" despite most of them being "Unknown"
Overall, while people should be encouraged to contact their MEPs, I suspect many are already very informed on this & strongly opposed. Whether Parliament will end up having enough power to stop it is a different question.
https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/council-eu/decision-makin...
If Germany is listed as "Undecided" then this is in the Council. The 96 MPs are from a wide spectrum of parties and most of them will already be either for, or against this.
For any representatives that have no position / position unknown, rather than the website showing them as "Unknown" as you'd expect, it just assumes their position is the position of their government's EU Council representative supports this.
Many national representatives are aligned with opposition parties within their own country, and as such it's highly likely their position will deviate from that of their government, so this is a pretty bad misrepresentation. Highly misleading.
(In this case it's even better - my country opposes, even though the governing parties are not mine.)
Everyone (except China) failed to regulate that. So now we see overcorrection.
The solution is to regulate Meta and TikTok and YouTube. Until that is on the table we’ll get performative stupidity from both sides.
The Roman Empire banned private clubs, seeing them as a source of revolution.
You have a law that requires age verification. Does the right oppose this because they oppose government regulation? You have a law that spends more tax dollars on law enforcement, lobbied for by the police unions. Does the left support this because they support government spending and unions?
There is no consistency in their positions, it's all just whatever happens to be in their coalition right now and it changes over time.
Sure are a lot of white elephants in the room with you...
French people mostly don't give a shit about religion and do not have any prudish views. We have many nudists beaches and women are regularly topless on the beach. Talking about sex if accepted in society and between friends and family.
So it's not about that at all.
What most French people are though is little children that need to be guided and protected by the state. Without the state they are lost. If you look at the news, the most recurring theme is: "why hasn't the government solved this problem for us poor souls? We are helpless, help us!"
Therefore French people accept the state and all that it encompasses. They have little protests here and there and sometime they succeed in making the state back down but in the end the state usually wins.
It's a form of learned helplessness and a very sad and toxic relationship between the French state and it's citizens.
No comments yet
France is still one of the least religious countries in Europe (Czech Republic usually being the least religious and France in the second position) and people talk about sex openly like a normal subject even at work.
If signal/whatsapp/e2ee are desecrated, only criminals will have encryption for a short period of time until we all come to our senses and realize that some semblance of personal privacy is a human right.
IMHO, we should fight for the maximum amount of privacy possible within the context of a civil society.
In every generation there is a battle, sometimes quiet, other times a dull roar, and occasionally a bombastic. This battle is who can oversee who.
Surveillance should be the last resort of a free society.
Is there any regime out there who's not trying to mass-surveil their citizens for one reason or another?
One can criticize analysis of mass surveillance of metadata and encrypted channels, but this is something else.
Is there something like this in the EU, so that officials feel personal risk and liability for their actions in pushing this anti democratic policy?
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Sealand
The one where citizens don’t regress into comfortably lazy nihilism as a first response.
Join Vatican City!
In a healthy society, citizens should always be wary of those in power and keep them on their toes, because power corrupts (and attracts already problematic characters).
Not driveling when they get thrown some crumbs or empty phrases ("child safety", "terrorism").
Covid authoritarian policies were hugely successful and supported by mainstream people by and large. Not enough protests. Not enough dissent.
Now politicians know they can turn the power knob as high as they want and nothing will happen. Less and less dissent will be allowed, just like during covid.
If you fail to learn that and denounce those and reclaim the freedoms for all, you're going to just whine into a smaller and smaller room.
America has been trashed not by Covid but by the precedence being set that partisan violence can and will be pardoned.
> *EU politicians exempt themselves from this surveillance under "professional secrecy" rules. They get privacy. You and your family do not. Demand fairness.
This is one of the many abuses by Leo(s), part why I don't love and trust police in italy: https://it.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatti_del_G8_di_Genova#p-lan...
I thought there was an English Wikipedia page but there isn't, translate it
America, Great Britain, and the EU are all creating tracking, monitoring, and censorship regulations. All at the same time.
We're turning the internet into the 1984 inevitability it was predicted to become.
We need a Bill of Rights against this. But the public is too lay to push for this. Bolstering or eroding privacy rights will never happen in the direction we want, only the one we don't. It's so frustrating.
These guys have been at it for a while.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Retention_Directive
That said, the UK doesn't need much convincing in this regard I suppose, they've always had their fair share of extreme laws along these lines and Leyen has personally dreamt of this for ages.
F that noise.
It's a tremendous opportunity, presently.
Power is never before so easily gotten.
Fight: Collaborate, Empathize, Reject division.
Where are the celebrities and public figures taking a stand against this?
Where are the grassroots organizations organizing protests and promoting sousveillance programs against the authoritarians who want to take away our rights and privacy?
The reason why this is all happening at once is because there's no resistance to it.
Until there's meaningful resistance you're just gonna see authoritarian policies keep snowballing.
They're afraid of losing their job or being painted as someone who supports terrorists, pedophiles, or other criminals.
This is obvious.
Get out of EU.
Now.
After all exempting some police, that work on investigating child molesting, from the scanning, that is understandable.
Exempting prime minster Mette Frederiksen, on the other hand. Means either that they understand that it undermines security, or that she or some other top politicians are child molester. So which is it?
The Danish government (currently holding the rotating chair) also raised the pension age for everyone. Other than themselves.
But also, how does this get implemented? What's stopping me from using, say, Signal, which being OSS would likely have a single line I could comment out and compile for myself?
How would I get busted for that? Or I could get clever and have AI generate some random chat text to send to the government while I send the actual text to my friends?
Steganography exists and is undefeatable, though very low bandwith.
Then the second phase is coming by 2030. Read about the ProtectEU (what a fucking ridiculous name) proposal which will mandate the scanning on device and basically record everything you do on your device.
This will be forced on Apple and other manufacturers directly.
Where can we read about that? The official documents are quite vague and I don't see anything as specific as mandatory device scanning.
The backdoored app will hopefully not be called Signal, since Signal themselves would never do this. I hope they own a trademark on it and could enforce it against anyone who would try to upload a backdoored version under their name.
People will use what is most convenient. If tomorrow Signal leaves the EU, WhatsApp will happily take its place and will happily enforce the scanning and everyone will just have to fall in line.
What good is it if you are the only one of your family who has the only "uncompromised" app on your phone? How will you talk to them? Any message you send will be scanned on the other end.
That also applies if you have friends overseas. Your friend from Japan/US will be compromised as well.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quod_licet_Iovi,_non_licet_bov...
This is, what, the fifth time in ten years they try to pass shit like this?
What really should be done is to disallow proposals, which are kinda the same. Once a mass surveillance proposal like this is defeated, it shouldn't be allowed to be constantly rebranded and reintroduced. We need a firewall in our legislative process that automatically rejects any future attempts at scanning private communications.
So there might be a right to privacy or freedom of speech enshrined in law, and the only way to change it would be for 90+% of the population to agree to change it. That way, it'd only take a minority disagreeing with a bad law to make it impossible to pass said law. Reactionaries and extremists would basically be defanged entirely, since they'd have to get most of their opponents to agree with any changes they propose, not just their own followers.
This very much exists in a lot of parliamentary rules authorities, but it's usually limited to once per "session." They just need to make rules that span sessions that raise the bar for introducing substantially similar legislation.
It can easily be argued that passing something that failed to pass before, multiple times, should require supermajorities. Or at least to create a type of vote where you can move that something "should not" be passed without a supermajority in the future.
It is difficult in most systems to make negative motions. At the least it would have to be tailored as an explicit prohibition on passing anything substantially similar to the motion in future sessions (without suspending the rules with a supermajority.)
I don't know as much about the French Parlement's procedure as I would like to, though.
No comments yet
...which Republicans swore up and down was temporary and yet, oddly, kept getting renewed wirth no evidence whatsoever it was necessary to stop a planned terrorist attack or that it would have stopped the WTC attacks themselves.
I bet 90% of the population or more has no idea that the Patriot Act was dumped and replaced with the nearly identical FREEDOM Act. Which took multiple tries to pass because they knew if they just kept hammering away, they'd eventually get it passed.
Yeah, they called a wildly invasive domestic spying bill the "freedom" act....
You could vote for a libertarian, but good luck.
Watchlist? Easy.
Mislead? Easy.
We need to isolate this bad behavior ASAP.
Having empathy for your neighbor, and working with those whom you disagree, are precursors. This gives power.
Then using power to enact consequences for businesses and governments (the people therein), fixes the problem.
It’ll soon be like the UK, that if you campaign against this kinda stuff, the party in power publicly calls you a paedophile. Because only people with something to hide want privacy.
Privacy is a losing proposition. Governments have the perfect trojan horse (child safety) so it’s only a matter of time before massive surveillance is the norm.
The difference is that one is not obligated to be part of a presbytery and can leave. The presbytery doesn't have guns.
If really someone gets the power who wants to change things they fight them too.
People want that everything stays the same. Problem is climate change and other problems make change inevitable.
Change like straws ban and attached caps? Such change, wow.
If so, that is the real solution, because it works in all cases.
It shouldn't be surprising that this happens again and again, and they only need to succeed once. Social movements of the past understood this well. They increased the costs to such an extent that they couldn't be ignored.
Look at the movements that brought forth societal change in the past and imitate them. I can't think of one that didn't have an "extremist" wing that was willing to target the decision makers were it hurt: economic output (eg. strikes or sabotage) and violence.
Can someone explain how they could read my e2e Sessions chat message sent via TOR to my wife about what I'm cooking for dinner?
Genuinely curious. Can those that are in power break this encryption?
That doesn’t break your comms today - but later, you replace your phone, can you get a current copy of the app?
I think the way it could work is to send a letter to each of the messaging apps saying that they are now legally required to use the EU’s encryption keys and make the messages available to the EU.
Then they would make it so that the apps that don’t comply are not available in the app stores by pressuring google and apple respectively.
I think this is the reason why for example telegram is not end to end encrypted by default - as some regions require them to be able to access users info.
Software you’re using on your own wouldn’t be effected, but wouldn’t necessarily be legal either.
People who are technically savvy could get around it, but the vast majority of people just assume that their private messages are private.
Purely P2P communication isn’t affected.
They can break encryption by stealing keys from your device, or by pwning your device, or by introducing backdoor into the chat client for every user.
I appreciate all the feedback, and have implemented a few changes. A few points worth accentuating to avoid any misunderstandings. It is correct that the current proposal indeed is at the Council level, introduced as a high-priority item by the Danish Presidency. It is not yet with the Parliament. This is important as both need to be in agreement for any legislation to be adopted into European law. The first two sections of the website thus summarises the level of support at Council level. The source of this data strictly follows leaked documents from a July 11th 2025 meeting of the Council's Law Enforcement Working Party (LEWP) [0], originally reported by [1] and subsequently summarised by [2]. The next meeting for LEWP is scheduled for September 12th [3], shortly after most MEPs return from vacation.
As noted in another comment, the Council level requires at least 15/27 member states to support it. Should this happen, it would then reach the Parliament, pending approval. However, as support at the Council level seems greater than in previous renditions (supported further by Denmark's insistence and confidence on an expedited vote scheduled for October 14 [4]), it seems prudent to target beyond merely the Council-level. This is the intended goal of the third section of the website.
I see a few comments here suggesting that it would be better to label MEPs yet to respond as "Unknown". I initially decided to have MEPs inherit the position of their government, in part because I (a) wanted to encourage MEPs making a statement and clarifying their stance (while some have in the past, circumstances have changed with this version of the legislation); and (b) wanted to encourage a firm opposition at the Parliament level, ideally before the Council vote. However, I recognise how this can be perceived as being misleading. As such, I have updated the appearance such that pending a response, the label reads "Unknown" while the border indicates the presumed stance of the MEP to be that of their government.
I appreciate the interest and feedback: thank you. Ultimately, the goal with this website really is to raise awareness that the proposed legislation, once again, has been resurrected and is making progress. The attention this thread has garnered is greatly appreciated. As all MEPs have been contacted to confirm their stance, I expect responses to arrive in the coming days and weeks, allowing the overview to soon accurately reflect the personal opinions of each MEP.
In the meantime, I would still encourage you to contact your MEPs such that they are aware of your concerns.
[0] https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/council-eu/preparatory-bo...
[1] https://netzpolitik.org/2025/internes-protokoll-eu-juristen-...
[2] https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/posts/chat-control/
[3] https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/meetings/mpo/2025/9/law-e...
[4] https://www.parlament.gv.at/dokument/XXVIII/EU/26599/imfname...
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Why is this Thought Policing tolerated?
Are we so End Stage Growth Economy that EVERY power broker see now as the time to employer (IC)Enforcement?
Gestapo much, anyone?
Because it's what everyone and their mother was calling for during covid to fight the dangerous <label> for opposing authoritarian policies.
Because we have to stop Russia, the republicans, extremists, anti war protests who are actually just <label>, because we have to protect kids, or fight racism...
It was all bullshit and people loved it. Now it's almost too late. If you don't reject it all and fight authoritarianism regardless of party alignment, you're not going to change any of this.
[0] https://fightchatcontrol.eu/resources
> Notice: The positions shown here are based on leaked documents from a July 11th, 2025 meeting of the EU Council's Law Enforcement Working Party (…) The icons next to each name show whether we are displaying their confirmed personal stance or their country's official Council position. This information is updated regularly as new responses come in.
In other words, take care to not harass an MEP whose position is unconfirmed. Be respectful in your opposition of the law but don’t be accusatory if you’re not certain of their stance.
Looking around the website, I can only find four MEPs whose stance was confirmed, all in Denmark. Even for the undecided and opposing countries, every listed stance is based on the stance of the country, not each individual. They should really make this clearer; displaying misinformation could really hurt the cause.
Regulate the politicians.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqtrNXdlraM
Governments often try that kind of nonsense. Usually against organized crime, terrorism, child abuse.
But in the end it’s just used for the heavy crimes like copyright infringement
1st - gag orders issued by secret courts, no trial, no apeal, can't even talk about it (can't even talk about the gag orders themselves, basically a gag order on a gag order). We only found out about it because Yahoo (out of all of them, the least you'd think would fight this) briefly tried to fight it. All the top CEOs got them. Yahoo briefly tried to fight it at some point and some court docs got out, but it wasn't much.
4th - multiple cases of confiscating cash without a trial, probable cause or anything of the sort. It's called "civil forfeiture", it's been done at both state and federal level, and it's so insanely full of mental gymnastics that at some point they tried to argue in court that "the person is not suspected of anything, the money is suspected of a crime". Bananas.
5th - there's a case where an executive was caught up in some investigation, and she was being held in contempt (jailed) over not divulging an encryption password. I haven't checked on the case in a while, but the idea of holding someone in contempt for so long defeats the purpose, and the idea of having to divulge passwords vs. having to provide a safe combination was apparently lost on the courts.
The lesson is: stay active, stay vocal, stay in the media, and prepare for a very long haul. And file lots of lawsuits challenging everything!
EU may be sliding towards feudalism, but America is definitely farther down that road than we are. Current administration's relationship with tech billionaires is a concrete proof of that. I have no faith in politicians of either part of the world.
All the while SCOTUS elevated him above the law; now he actually could shoot somebody on fifth ave and he’d really not have to fear prosecution.
Are you sure you want to make this point?
Still they try because there is always an exception that allows breaking those laws.
Chat control isn’t something the EU invented, they tried to implement CSAM in Apple devices and the whole chat control thing in the EU was heavily lobbied by Thorn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorn_(organization)
I went deep into this rabbit hole and did a lot of reading on how this org is pushing it's agenda in EU.
I hate this Hollywood idiots with burning passion.
I don't think they do. They have constitutions that guarantee "Freedom of Speech" or "Expression," but don't define those terms in any way. I don't know that any of them lack legally prohibited political speech laws.
I feel the US was the origin of this "Hate Speech" nightmare that has been growing to encompass all of Western politics over the past 30 years, but the irony is that you can do slurs all day long in the US, to anybody you want, whenever you want. You will probably be ejected from the premises, though. In the US, the speech still has to be connected to a crime. In the EU, the speech itself is the crime.
China has always been authoritarian (and hyper-centralized).
The US is working hard to copy bad ideas from authoritarians, but can't do it in exactly the same way, otherwise the ability to criticize the EU, UK, and China is lost.
Europe generally has constitutions, and not precedence laws, which is a massive difference.
> culturally
Debatable. As a Hungarian, living in the UK.
> and geographically close to Europe
This one is true.
Closer than to the US?
I'm not sure about the first two. The latter is also debatable, at least from the UK's point of view. Ireland feels closer to Europe than the UK does.
Only in terms of perception or semantics or applying a huge negative weighting to a bit of water and ignoring boats, trains and planes exist. But then you say...
> Ireland feels closer to Europe
So are you slyly conflating Europe and the EU?
Some crazy person might say this is really subtle "UK isn't part of Europe" propaganda similar to that in the lead of up Brexit
The UK has continuously been pulled between it's dying imperialist vision of itself as a world power, it's close but conflicted ties with the US, and it's similarly close and conflicted ties with the EU.
Much closer. It's a unitary state with a monarchy and parliamentary sovereignty, it's highly centralized economically and culturally. It's more European than much of Europe. Post war Germany, republican and decentralized economically is structurally more like the US than Britain. The only reason people in the US tend to identify with Britain is Anglo-Protestant identitarianism.
Britain in reality operates a lot like France or Russia, an overwhelmingly strong capital and grand historical old world nationalism with relatively weak constitutional or formal limits on government.
Under these terms most of what we're protecting with encryption is private - finances, health records, etc. I shouldn't concern others.
Sadly, it does, because the world is full of pieces of shite people who want dynamic pricing on health insurance based on medical information, and all the similar reasons, for example. (Note: I'm from Europe. The while insurance system that's in place in the UK is disgusting, and it's nowhere even remotely close to the pestilence of the US system.)
I'm conflicted with the whole encryption topic. We initially needed CPU power for it, now we have hardware, but that means more complicated hardware, and so on. We now have 47 days long certificates because SeKuRiTy, and a system that must be running, otherwise a mere text website will be de-ranked by Google and give you a fat *ss warning about not being secure. But again, we "need" it, because ISPs were caught adding ads to plain text data.
Unless there are serious repercussions on genuinely crappy people, encryption must stay. So the question is: why is nobody thinking about strong, enforceable laws about wiretapping, altering content, stealing information that people shouldn't have, etc, before trying to backdoor encryption?
there's no internet police
Next time think twice before calling people "freedumb" lovers and otherwise label them as Nazis, deniers, -ism, terrorism apologist, foreign government agents and more which is the typical attack when people fight for civil rights and freedoms.
It's always placing them on a false spectrum and assuming the worst.
Now you get to enjoy your authoritarian utopia. All for the greater good.
We need to save the EU from these people!
We could have economic and military cooperation without this circus.
It's not even actually democratic and veto powers of tiny countries like hungary have turned common foreign policy into a joke.
On a serious note, I think EU was a good idea but it has decayed a lot, especially after how the Greek crisis was handled and because of multiple legal design flaws. It needs a big restructuring, otherwise it will continue to decline and be used as a dumping ground for unpopular laws like Chat Control.
States control what’s centralized; incentives ensure they keep doing so.
Protesting it is like arguing with a thermostat—it can’t hear you, and it’s built to tighten control.
As technologists, we have a lot more power than we realise.
(Yes, I’m speaking to the blob, but the Venn overlap of anti-crypto and pro-this seems big.)
The point is that the site, contacting your local MEP, and all the discussion in this thread, is pointless to affect some kind of durable societal change
Pointing out that it's vibe-coded just emphasises that all of the above actions are just low-effort cope