Blocking minority in the EU Council: Netherlands reaffirms no to chat control

In the coming days, the Hungarian EU Council Presidency is likely to find it difficult to forge a common position among the government representatives of the member states on the EU Commission's hotly contested draft regulation on online surveillance under the banner of the fight against child sexual abuse. Last month, the Netherlands had considered supporting the Presidency's proposal or at least abstaining. This would have called into question the blocking minority against chat control, according to which four member states with at least 35 percent of the EU population can prevent the adoption of a dossier. However, on Tuesday, the government in The Hague clarified it that it still does not see itself in a position to vote in favor of the initiative.

In September, Hungary proposed limiting the controversial disclosure orders to known depictions of abuse. The search for new images or videos as well as evidence of stalking children via the internet (grooming) should be excluded. In essence, this was already attempted by the then Spanish Council leadership a year ago. Nevertheless, the Hungarian approach now appears to have more supporters than that of its predecessors. However, Dutch Justice Minister David van Weel from the right-wing liberal VVD party has now told Parliament that Hungary, too, has not sufficiently considered the government's concerns regarding the protection of fundamental rights in the areas of privacy and telecommunications secrecy as well as the security of the digital space. It would therefore not support the planned common approach of the Council.

Dutch spies do not want chat control

End-to-end encryption must remain possible, the Dutch executive emphasizes. Client-side scanning "of child pornography material" directly on end devices, which is still on the table with the regulation, would pose "too great a security risk for the digital resilience of the Netherlands". The Dutch Secret Service had previously rejected the draft regulation because the "introduction of a scanning application on every cell phone" with an associated infrastructure for evaluating the collected data would be a complex and extensive system that would entail risks for digital resilience. In an open letter on Tuesday, the opposition party GroenLinks-PvdA, together with civil society organizations, also called for a targeted, evidence-based approach that protects privacy and effectively combats child abuse. The proposal on the table, on the other hand, is based on untested technology. It is likely to weaken encryption and help authoritarian regimes with mass surveillance.

As recently as the end of September, hundreds of scientists used very similar arguments. They warned that the current draft would only bring minor changes compared to previous versions and that basic problems, such as the undermining of reliable encryption, would remain. Hungary has nevertheless put the project on the agenda of the Council's Permanent Representatives Committee (Coreper) for Wednesday, which is to prepare a corresponding decision by the justice and interior ministers on October 10 or 11. In previous attempts, Germany, Sweden and Austria, among others, declared that they could not agree to the text. Poland also pursued this line, but is said to no longer be among the staunch opponents.

(mki)