Children’s online safety is a big issue in the United States and elsewhere. So far, lawmakers have pushed laws that appear to make it safer for children online, but could actually lead to identity theft (like the Age Verification Act) and block LGBTQ and other content (like the Children’s Online Safety Act).
In the EU, a law is seeking to break end-to-end encryption to stop CSAM (child sexual abuse material). According to The Verge, chat control laws recommend scanning messages, including encrypted messages. End-to-end encryption means no one, including governments and messaging platforms, can read your messages. They are scrambled so that only the sender and receiver can read them.
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In November, the European Parliament’s civil liberties committee voted to rule out proposals for large-scale scanning of encrypted messages, which had been proposed in a previous version of the chat control law first introduced in 2022.
However, the changes appear to be linguistic only. The latest chat control laws will implement an “upload moderation” system that will scan messages at scale, including messages with links, photos and videos. The proposed law states that end-to-end encryption is necessary to protect rights, but it goes on to note that “it is vital that services that employ end-to-end encryption do not inadvertently become safe areas where child sexual abuse material can be leaked.” .
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This is paradoxical because scanning techniques can break this encryption. As a result, several digital rights activists and organizations issued statements against chat controls. The Center for Democracy and Technology, the Internet Freedom Foundation, Mozilla and others signed a joint statement calling on the European Council to “reject all scanning proposals that do not comply with the principles of end-to-end encryption.”
Meredith Whittaker, president of encrypted messaging app Signal, also issued a statement rejecting chat controls and saying language like “upload moderation” was “old surveillance with a new brand.” . Regarding Mastodon, Whittaker said that if the bill passes, Signal will leave the EU.
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Dozens of members of the European Parliament also signed an open letter opposing the law, saying it would weaken cybersecurity and become “a blueprint for authoritarian states.”
MEP Patrick Breyer said the EU Council would vote on the bill on Thursday.
