Leaked documents: Little resistance in the EU Council to chat control

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leaked documents little resistance in the eu council to chat.jpg
leaked documents little resistance in the eu council to chat.jpg

So far, only Germany and Austria are explicitly against the massive surveillance of private encrypted messages as part of an EU regulation.

Data protectionists, civil rights activists and large parts of the Internet industry have been up in arms against the EU Commission’s draft regulation on combating child sexual abuse for months. Above all, they are rubbing shoulders with the planned massive surveillance of private messages (“chat control”). In the EU Council of Ministers, which is currently deliberating on the dossier, criticism has been limited.

According to an internal mood picture of the Council’s prosecution working group, which Netzpolitik.org summarized, there are serious concerns about the question of whether the planned chat control should also be extended to encrypted communication. According to the July paper, none of the member states expressly agree to such a far-reaching measure. However, only Germany and Austria are explicitly against it. There are unclear positions in the Netherlands, Belgium, Greece and France.

According to a wired report by the Federal Government from another meeting of the working group of the ministerial body, which was published by Netzpolitik.org and was classified as “only for official use”, France is now fully behind the project as a whole: the neighboring country has expressly emphasized that “the draft – despite some open questions – to support absolutely”.

With the controversial project, providers of consistently encrypted messaging and other communication services such as WhatsApp, Apple, Signal and Threema can also be obliged by official orders to locate photos and videos of child abuse in the messages of their users.

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According to the report, the first document states that Austria has serious concerns about fundamental rights, in particular violations of the right to privacy. In fact, the content of messages could only be read if the secure end-to-end encryption was fundamentally broken. The error rate in the automatic recognition of content is also problematically high, which could lead to many innocent suspects.

Significantly more EU countries should agree to the more general question of whether comprehensive chat control is necessary. However, it is not defined in more detail whether encrypted communication also falls under this. France, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, the Netherlands, Latvia and Finland particularly liked the approach. SPD digital politicians have recently complained that there has been little support from other member states and from the EU Parliament to resist the dossier.

Netzpolitik.org writes that Germany’s position is not clear from the paper. In general, the federal government supports the proposal of the EU Commission well-intentioned. The German representation in Brussels points out that the measures contained are acceptable if the confidentiality of communication is maintained. This must not be undermined either legally or technically. To this end, the planned regulation should explicitly state that encryption must not be broken. Germany also welcomes stricter age checks, as long as anonymous use is guaranteed.

The traffic light coalition still has to stake out its position on the draft overall. Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) initially welcomed the initiative for nationwide child pornography scans, but later declared parts of it to be legally sensitive. The FDP-led federal ministries for digital affairs and justice recently set up red lines against chat control. For example, they want to prevent the end-to-end encryption of messengers from being undermined.

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According to the wire report, the Commission sees techniques such as the Microsoft product PhotoDNA, which are based on hash values, as suitable for discovering already known depictions of child sexual abuse. Artificial intelligence (AI) “similar to the technologies for recognizing SPAM/virus content” can be used to detect new, previously unknown material and for indications that potential perpetrators are stalking children (“grooming”).

According to the minutes, Estonia asked whether providers should build backdoors into their products from the outset or first respond to a “disclosure order” for chat control. The Commission therefore replied that the service providers were obliged to ensure child safety “by design” in their products. You would therefore have to ensure that the risks are technically minimized from the outset. However, the regulation does not provide for “backdoors by design”.

The draft is aimed at “technology neutrality”, emphasized the commission. If no procedure is available that ensures adequate protection of fundamental rights, an order cannot be issued. In general, the role of encrypted communication in the dissemination of abuse material should not be underestimated. According to estimates, two-thirds of all messages from Facebook & Co. would be omitted if end-to-end encryption was available in all messengers by default.


(olb)