#chat control

[hamadisthings]

HELP US STOP CHAT CONTROL!

If you live in the EU, you absolutely need to pay attention to what's to come. What is Chat Control, you may ask? In a (failed) attempt to combat child abuse online the EU made Chat Control, Chat Control will result in getting your private messages and emails to be scanned by artificial intelligence aka AI to search for CSAM pictures or discussion that might have grooming in there. And on top of having your private conversations handed to AI or the police to snoop in, like your family pictures, selfies, or more sensitive pics, like the medical kind, only meant to be seen by your doctors, or the "flirtatious" kind you send to your partner, you either have to ACCEPT to be scanned...or else you will be forbidden from sending pictures, videos, or even links, as said here.

Kids should absolutely be protected online, without question, but the things that Chat Control gets wrong is that this is a blatant violation of privacy, without even considering the fact that AI WILL create tons of false positives, this is not a theory, this is a fact. And for all the false positives that will be detected, all of them will be sent to the police, which will just flood their system with useless junk instead of efficiently putting resources to actual protect kids from predators.

It also does not help that politicians, police officers, soldiers etc will be exempt from Chat Control if it passes. If it's for the sake of protection, shouldn't everyone get the same treatment? Which further prove that Chat Control would NOT keep your data of private life safe. Plus, bad actors will simply stop using messenger apps as soon as they know they're being tracked, using more obscure means, meanwhile innocent people will be punished by using those services On top of this, the EU also plans on reintroducing Data retention called "EU Going Dark". Both Chat Control and EU Going Dark are clear violation of the GDPR, and even if they shouldn't stand a chance in court, its not going to prevent politicians from trying to ram these through as an excuse to mass surveil European citizens, using kids as a shield. Even teenagers sending pictures to each other won't be exempt, which entirely goes against the purpose of protecting kids by retaining their private photos instead. Furthermore, once messaging apps are forced to comply with Chat Control, the president of Signal, a secured messaging app with encryption, have confirmed that they will be forced to leave the EU if this is enforced against them.

If Chat Control also ends up targeting any websites with the option of private messages, you better expect Europe to be geo-blocked by any websites offering such function. I would also like to add that EU citizens were very vocal in the fight against KOSA, an equally bad internet bill from the US-- and it showed! Which is why we heavily need the help of our fellow US peers to fight against Chat Control too, so please, because we all know if it passes, the US government will take a look at this and conclude "Ooh, a way to force mass surveillance on citizens even more than before? don't mind if I do!" It's always a snowball effect.

KEEP IN MIND THE EUROPE COUNCIL WILL LIKELY VOTE ON CHAT CONTROL THIS 19 JUNE OF NEXT WEEK TO SEE IF IT WILL ENTER TRILOGIES OR NOT. Even if it does enter Trilogues, the fight will only be beginning. Absentees may not count as a no, so it is crucial that you contact your MEPs HERE, as well as HERE, and you can also show your support for Edri's campaign against Chat Control HERE.

You can read more on Chat Control here as well, and you can find useful information as to which arguments to use when politely contacting your MEP (calling is better than email) here, and beneath you will find graphics you can use to spread the word!

YOU CAN ALSO JOIN OUR DISCORD SERVER (linked here) TO HELP ORGANIZE AGAINST CHAT CONTROL NON EU PEOPLE ARE MORE THAN WELCOME TO JOIN TOO!

https://discord.gg/FPDJYkUujM

PLEASE REBLOG ! NON EU PEOPLE ARE ENCOURAGED TO REBLOG AS WELL CONTACT YOUTUBERS, CONTENT CREATORS, ANYONE YOU KNOW THAT MAY HELP GET THE WORD OUT ! Let's fight for our Internet and actually keep kids safe online! Because Chat Control and EU Going Dark will only endanger kids.

PLEASE REBLOG! NON EU PEOPLE ARE ENCOURAGED TO REBLOG AS WELL CONTACT YOUTUBERS, CONTENT CREATORS, ANYONE YOU KNOW THAT MAY HELP GET THE WORD OUT !

Let's fight for our Internet and actually keep kids safe online! Because Chat Control and EU Going Dark will only endanger kids.

[taikeero-lecoredier]

Chat Control is back on track again

Original tweet here Originally it was assumed that Chat Control would only show up again in October, so I am unsure if this changes anything, if those meetings mean something else or not. If anyone can clear it up, please do. In the meantime, its very crucial to keep making noises about this. Even if you are not from Europe, please spread the word. Here's what you can do to get started as EU citizens : https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/take-action-to-stop-chat-control-now/

If you havent grasped the severity of this proposal yet, it would break encryption of private messages, as it would make it mandatory for EU citizens to accept to have their private messages and pictures scanned by artificial intelligence, or else they can't send any text or pictures anymore. This is unacceptable.

[four-ravens-in-a-trenchcoat]

Fuck this shit

Now Sweden gives thumbs-up to chat control 2.0, an awful proposition which would require digital communication providers to allow government access to encrypted private messages ("but only photo, video and links now :):):) not literally every digital communication you do :):):)"). This is a massive invasion to personal integrity, a fucking data security risk and an "'accidentally' surveilled the groups I like to opress or my political opponents a bit, oops" risk, especially in the more authoritarian countries. All to find, you know it, child porn and grooming (this will of course not catch teens sending consensual nudes, vacation pictures of babies on beaches sent to family members or normal porn and waste massive resources on scanning and processing "suspect" content).

Did I mention this sucks yet? They didn't even ask the government people supposed to decide our stance on EU politics, just the justice committee. During a single meeting, no debate. Sweden's desicion means a larger probablility that this passes in EU.

And you know what? Two parties which my views generally align with, who before the election NOT EVEN TWO WEEKS AGO, one of which I voted for partly because of their stance on this (no to mass surveillance, personal integrity is important) BOTH DID A 180 AND VOTED FOR CHAT CONTROL. One thing if parties I don't like and don't vote for do this, but I trusted these fuckers to have at least a little backbone/common sense. Also why did the nationalistic and generally shitty party SD vote no to this. Why do only they and C think this is a bad idea.

In other news, I've written to my first representative today to express my disappointment. I hope this doesn't pass silently.

[eziojensenthe3rd]

So european peeps, remember chat control? Well consider making some noise atm and contacting your reps because it seems to be back on the agenda with october being a discussion on progress with december aiming to endorse it. Get cracking.

(Posting this under kosa tag cause its another bad internet bill)

[mapsontheweb]

Country Stance on the EU "Chat Control" Proposal as of June 2024

[sammysam999]

Yeah, we probably should all be worried about this, because the eu parliament didn't push back against stuff like this hard enough before, after the elections they certainly won't change that. If the representatives in the eu council after the next national elections end up reflecting similar growths for the far right and center right we might be fucked even if the european court keeps pushing back.

This is also basically just a continuation of the ongoing discussion concerning chat control.

For those unaware: Officially proposed as law to fight and prevent csam and grooming under the name of Child Sexual Abuse Regulation, however in practice it demands profound undermining of end-to-end encryption, basically opening door to never known mass surveillance. It asks for scanning of every data uploaded, proposing the use of for example client side scanning and to scan for known csam - originally it was supposed to scan also for new material, but the justified fear of false-positives caused the mitigation to scan only for known material and "grooming", after long discussions if "new technologies" couldn't solve the problem of both, the life-destroying issue of false positive and the undermining of end-to-end encryption (spoiler: If a law must hope that speculative technology that doesn't yet exist and might never exist will solve it's problems you know it's a shit law that tries to find the technological sledgehammer to solve problems that are better solved in different ways. And whoever supports such a law should be looked at with suspicion, concerning either their competences or their motivations). The latest compromise proposed that instead of scanning everything it should only scan video and pictures... with users getting asked to agree to this or to just not being able to use those parts of a service. The major countries that blocked the chat control in EU council where by now Germany and France (though France already is showing cracks in its resistance, which is bad). There also is the position of the judicial branch of the EU which clearly positions the law as not reconcilable with current EU laws. For now the law is on hold, mostly because parliament (which agrees with the law) and council (which holds against it) can't come to an agreement and we now had eu parliament elections.

Honestly if you guys are worried about KOSA, you also should be worried about this. It's certain that the pressure to implement further means of mass surveillance is growing and that politicians will try to spin it positively (by linking the measurements to heavy topics like csam, even if most organizations working on prevention see the lack of proportionality, doubt the usefulness and criticize the potential of abuse behind such extrem disfranchisement of civil rights).

[channeledhistory]

The highly controversial indiscriminate child sexual abuse regulation (so-called chat control) could still be endorsed by EU governments after all, as France could give up its previous veto. This is reported by Euractiv and confirmed by internal documents. France considers the new “upload moderation” proposal in principle as a viable option. According to the latest draft regulation dated 28 May (Council document 9093/24), which is presented as “upload moderation”, users of apps and services with chat functions are to be asked whether they accept the indiscriminate and error-prone scanning and possibly reporting of their privately shared images, photos and videos. Previously unknown images and videos are also to be scrutinised using “artificial intelligence” technology. If a user refuses the scanning, they would be blocked from sending or receiving images, photos, videos and links (Article 10). End-to-end encrypted services such as Whatsapp or Signal would have to implement the automated searches “prior to transmission” of a message (so-called client-side scanning, Article 10a). The initially proposed scanning of text messages for indications of grooming, which is hardly being used to date, is to be scrapped, as is the scanning of voice communication, which has never been done before. Probably as a concession to France, the chats of employees of security authorities and the military are also to be exempted from chat control.

During the last discussion on 24 May, the Council Legal Service made it clear that indiscriminate chat control scanning of non-suspects is still envisioned and remains a violation of fundamental rights. Nevertheless, most EU governments are determined to go ahead. EU governments plan to continue their discussions on June 4th. “The Belgian proposal means that the essence of the EU Commission’s extreme and unprecedented initial chat control proposal would be implemented unchanged,” warns MEP and most prominent opponent of chat control Patrick Breyer (Pirate Party). “Using messenger services purely for texting is not an option in the 21st century. And removing excesses that aren’t being used in practice anyway is a sham. Millions of private chats and private photos of innocent citizens are to be searched using unreliable technology and then leaked without the affected chat users being even remotely connected to child sexual abuse – this would destroy our digital privacy of correspondence. Our nude photos and family photos would end up with strangers in whose hands they do not belong and with whom they are not safe. Despite lip service being paid to encryption, client-side scanning would undermine previously secure end-to-end encryption in order to turn our smartphones into spies – this would destroy secure encryption. [...]

[commiepinkofag]

Take action now

These are ideas for what you can do in the short-term or with some preparation. Start with:

Ask you government to call on the European Commission to withdraw the chat control proposal. Point them to a joint letter that was recently sent by children’s rights and digital rights groups from across Europe. Click here to find the letter and more information.

Check your government’s position (see above) and, if they voted in favour or abstained, ask them to explain why. Tell them that as a citizen you want them to reject the proposal, that chat control is widely criticised by experts and that none of the proposals tabled in the Council of the EU so far are acceptable. Ask them to protect the privacy of your communication and your IT security.

Share this call to action online.

When reaching out to your government, the ministries of the interior (in the lead) of justice and of digitisation/telecommunications/economy are your best bet. You can additionally contact the permanent representation of your country with the EU.

It can also be useful to reach out to Members of your national Parliament who can determine your country’s vote. Talk to your political representatives. Whether it is the newly elected MEPs of the European Parliament or local groups of the political parties: make sure everyone is aware of what chat control is about and that you expect politicians to defend your fundamental rights against the proposal!

When contacting politicians, writing a real letter, calling in or attending a local party event or visiting a local office to have a conversation will have a stronger impact than writing an e-mail. You can find contact details on their websites. Just remember that while you should be determined in your position, remain polite, as they will otherwise disregard what you have to say. Here is useful argumentation on chat control. And here is argumentation for why the minor modifications so far envisioned by EU governments fail to address the dangers of chat control: by us, by EDRi, by CDT.

As we continue the fight against against chat control, we need to expand the resistance:

Explain to your friends why this is an important topic. This short video, translated to all European languages, is a good start – feel free to use and share it. Also available on PeerTube (EN) and YouTube (DE).

Taking action works better and is more motivating when you work together. So try to find allies and form alliances. Whether it is in a local hackspace or in a sports club: your local action group against chat control can start anywhere. Then you can get creative and decide which type of action suits you best.

Take action now. We are the resistance against chat control!

[mapplestrudel]

"On Monday a new version of the globally unprecedented EU bill aimed at searching all private messages and chats for suspicious content (so-called chat control or child sexual abuse regulation) was circulated and leaked by POLITICO soon after. According to the latest proposal providers would be free whether or not to use ‘artificial intelligence’ to classify unknown images and text chats as ‘suspicious’. However they would be obliged to search all chats for known illegal content and report them, even at the cost of breaking secure end-to-end messenger encryption. The EU governments are to position themselves on the proposal by 23 September, and the EU interior ministers are to endorse it on 10 October. Messenger providers Signal and Threema have already announced that they will never agree to incorporate such surveillance routines into their apps and would rather shut down operations in the EU."

[clatterbane]

EU users: ChatKontrol is back. here's a step by step on how to fight it

By Wednesday, politicians will resume work on it (https://digitalcourage.social/@echo\_pbreyer/113055345076289453)

Please help fight that thing back.

Here's the step by step:

https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/take-action-to-stop-chat-control-now/

[ortie-pnk]

EU new Chat Control proposal puts the security of everyon at risk in search of an non-existent magic tool.

Since it was first proposed, the EU’s Regulation to prevent and combat child sexual abuse (aka Chat Control) has gained the attention of security experts, academics, civil society, and the private sector for all the wrong reasons.

Early versions of the Commission's proposal included requirements for media scanning and effectively entail the mass surveillance of Europeans.

Plainly, end-to-end encryption cannot survive this type of requirement. As so many others have said before, as a society we cannot compromise the integrity of end-to-end encryption for the entire population to be able to stop the minority of criminals. All it will do is to encourage criminals to use genuinely secure platforms, while leaving the good actors vulnerable to attack. Introducing a scanner into an encrypted system is essentially introducing a vulnerability waiting to be exploited by bad actors at the expense of everyone’s security and privacy.

via Element

How to take action

[taikeero-lecoredier]

Chat Control in a nutshell (please reblog this, US people)

Find out more about Chat Control here TAKE ACTION HERE ! OR HERE Calling is much more efficient ! The latter link will redirect you to the official websites of your respective reps. Under the "read more", you will find what you need to say/write when contacting your reps. You will also find an alternate format of this comic,and I give explicit permission for people to translate it and spread it anywhere for awareness. Credit really not needed, I don't care about that rn Even if this is a EU proposal, I am urging Americans to also share this, since it goes hand in hand with KOSA. DON'T FORGET TO JOIN OUR DISCORD SERVER AGAINST CHAT CONTROL ! https://discord.com/invite/e7FYdYnMkS

(Latest update on Chat Control was the 12 september 2024) This is a little long, so feel free to shorten it as you wish : Subject line: "2022/0155(COD) Dear Sir/Madam, I am writing to express my grave concerns regarding the proposed introduction of "Chat Control" This measure poses a serious threat to the privacy and fundamental rights of all EU citizens and stands in stark contradiction to the core principles that the European Union seeks to uphold. The proposed Chat Control contravenes Articles 7 and 8 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, which guarantee the right to respect for private and family life and the protection of personal data. The indiscriminate surveillance of private messages without specific suspicion or cause directly violates these fundamental rights. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) sets out stringent rules for the processing of personal data. The proposed indiscriminate surveillance and scanning of private messages before end-to-end encryption is fundamentally incompatible with the principles of data minimization and purpose limitation enshrined in the GDPR. Specifically, Articles 5 and 6 of the GDPR, which govern the lawfulness and principles of data processing, would be violated by the introduction of such measures. The implementation of Client-Side Scanning (CSS) on devices means that all messages and files are scanned on the user's device before being encrypted and sent. This effectively nullifies the protection offered by end-to-end encryption and opens the door to misuse and additional security vulnerabilities. Moreover, the technical capability to scan such content could be exploited by malicious actors to circumvent or manipulate surveillance mechanisms. Such far-reaching surveillance measures not only endanger privacy but also freedom of expression. The knowledge that their private messages are being scanned and monitored could significantly restrict individuals' willingness to freely express themselves. Additionally, trust in digital communication platforms would be severely undermined. I urge you to take a strong stance against this disproportionate and unlawful measure. The privacy and digital rights of EU citizens must be safeguarded. It is imperative that we protect our fundamental rights and ensure transparency in the decision-making processes of our leaders. For more detailed information on the proposal and its implications, please refer to the following resource: Link to Netzpolitik article. https://www.patrick-breyer.de/rat-soll-chatkontrolle-durchwinken-werde-jetzt-aktiv/ Thank you for your attention to this critical matter. Sincerely, [Name] Art. 10 GG , Art. 8 & 11 EU Charta , Art. 8 EMRK (Alternate comic here V)

[imagineforeststudio]

Please don't panic… We will really stop this Chat Control, just like we will stop the Kosa bill.We can still stop this!!

Please..We must do everything we can to stop this.Say a firm «NO» to the government against Chat Control.

[transparentgentlemenmarker]

Nouveau peu en parle, info à qui de droit. L'Union européenne veut lire vos messages privés et analyser vos fichiers. Vos WhatsApp, Telegram, courriels, fichiers dans le cloud, tout. La vie privée appartiendrait au passé. La proposition de la Commission européenne s'intitule : "Chat Control" ou contrôle des conversations

Les messages privés doivent rester secrets votez contre le contrôle des chats par l'UE. Cliquez pour signer la pétition sur: cgo.ac/scpeJ4vl

[eziojensenthe3rd]

Can we please go 5 minutes without some internet censorship law popping up? Please?

Eu people, please call your relevant reps.

[regsagc]

EU mass surveillance law has been put back on the drawing board

(source)

This Thursday, (20.6.24) a vote was supposed to take place on a law package that would mandate surveillance of all EU chat services. The law wasn't struck down, but simply withdrawn by the proposers because they wouldn't have gotten a majority. It's going to come back in the future, and that is why it is important that people are aware of this.

Under the guise of "saving the children" the law would require the setting up of infrastructure to scan all communications between people in the EU. Actual child protection organisations have described the law as disproportionate and unhelpful. Regardless of suspicion, it would scan and send automatically flagged content to law enforcement.

This would make all chat inherently insecure, as adding a back-door that one party can snoop through, is an obvious point of attack for hackers. Lawmakers seem aware of this, as drafts of the law have included exemptions for military, intelligence agencies and police.

Not to mention the times stuff will be flagged in error, and then end up on the desk of some law enforcement officer or other.

Once this infrastructure is in place, it could easily be adapted to scan for anything else. Allow me to speculate wildly: monitoring drug trades, cracking down on activists, creating a list of queer people in a country, etc. All it would take is another law on top of the first, and experience shows that when the technology is already there, it is a much smaller step to broaden its scope.

Luckily, the law has been put back in a drawer right now, but there are EU countries such as Hungary and Belgium who are still actively re-working it and looking to propose it again at a time when they think it is likely to pass.