Surveillance: majority of EU member states stick to mandatory chat control
The Polish Council Presidency wants to allow chat control on a voluntary basis on a permanent basis, but does not want mandatory scanning.
(Image: Tero Vesalainen/Shutterstock.com)
A setback for the Polish EU Council Presidency's efforts to end the years-long dispute over the EU Commission's draft regulation on mass online surveillance under the banner of the fight against child sexual abuse. The Presidency of the Committee of Ministers recently proposed deleting the particularly controversial electronic communications disclosure orders. However, this does not go down well with many other government representatives: a majority are against it.
With its preferred form of chat control, the Commission also wants to be able to force providers of end-to-end encrypted messaging and other communication services such as WhatsApp. Apple with iMessage, Signal, and Threema to track down abusive photos and videos in their users' messages.
Instead, Poland suggested that the current transitional regulation on voluntary scanning for sexual abuse images should be made permanent. This – also not uncontroversial – option was approved by the EU legislator in 2021 through an exemption from the ePrivacy Directive. This allows Facebook, Google, Microsoft and other service providers to search their users' private messages in the EU for relevant material on a legal basis. The requirement currently applies until the end of 2025.
How is the new German government positioning itself?
Last week, the Council Working Party on Law Enforcement discussed the Presidency's initiative. 16 of the 27 member states cannot see any "added value" in it. They fear a "step backwards behind the status quo". This emerges from the minutes of the meeting from German government circles, which have been classified as confidential and published by Netzpolitik.org.
Videos by heise
According to the minutes, Spain criticizes that waiving mandatory chat control would clearly cross a red line. Italy also fears that the Polish proposal would completely miss the original aim of the draft. Bulgaria pointed out that without a legal requirement, many service providers would remain inactive. Ireland assumes that even Facebook & Co. would be encouraged to refrain from voluntary measures. Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, Slovenia and Finland, on the other hand, welcome the Presidency's compromise approach in principle. Much will now depend on how the future German government positions itself in the debate.
(vbr)
