- I am the creator of Fight Chat Control.
Thank you for sharing. It is unfortunately, once again, needed.
The recent events have been rather dumbfounding. On March 11, the Parliament surprisingly voted to replace blanket mass surveillance with targeted monitoring of suspects following judicial involvement [0]. As Council refused to compromise, the trilogue negotiations were set to fail, thus allowing the Commission's current indiscriminate "Chat Control 1.0" to lapse [1]. This would have been the ideal outcome.
In an unprecedented move, the EPP is attempting to force a repeat vote tomorrow, seeking to overturn the otherwise principled March 11 decision and instead favouring indiscriminate mass surveillance [1, 2]. In an attempt to avoid this, the Greens earlier today tried to remove the repeat vote from the agenda tomorrow, but this was voted down [3].
As such, tomorrow, the Parliament will once again vote on Chat Control. And unlike March 11, multiple groups are split on the vote, including S&D and Renew. The EPP remains unified in its support for Chat Control. If you are a European citizen, I urge you to contact your MEPs by e-mail and, if you have time, by calling. We really are in the final stretch here and every action counts. I have just updated the website to reflect the votes today, allowing a more targeted approach.
Happy to answer any questions.
[0] https://mepwatch.eu/10/vote.html?v=188578
[1] https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/the-battle-over-chat-contro...
[2] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/OJQ-10-2026-03...
[3] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/PV-10-2026-03-...
- So... if we all care so much about shooting down the bad idea, why is nobody proposing opposite legislation: a bill enshrining a right to private communications, such that bills like this one would become impossible to even table?
Is it just that there's no "privacy lobby" interested in getting even one lawyer around to sit down and write it up?
Or is there at least one such bill floating around, but no EU member state has been willing to table it for discussion?
- Okay so I had to look in to it because the site is not really doing a good job explaining it at all. Turns out[0] that they are voting for the extension of the temporary regulation thats been in effect since 2021 (Regulation (EU) 2021/1232). So this is about the "voluntary scanning of private communications" (which is still bad, but has been in effect for almost 5 years already).
[0]: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/sedcms/documents/PRIORITY_INF...
- If you're ever unsure about whether a proposed EU regulation may be good or bad, just look at whether Hungary supports it: if so, it's bad; if not, it might be good. Egészségére!
- The proposal was rejected: https://chaos.social/@maxim/116294966670838045
- I would like to share here that the author of this site made it very easy to call. If you read this and are in the EU, I urge you to try this.
Find a representative you think is at least somewhat likely to change their mind, and call their phone nr listed on the site. I tried one rep and couldn't get through, tried another (their Brussels phone) and I got someone on the line. The site helpfully suggests a call script, which you can take hints from.
I got a staffer on the line, who didn't want to share what my rep was planning to vote and generally wasn't very excited about calling with me, but I imagine that if lots of people call lots of these staffers, things actually do get through to these MEPs.
Please help.
- That's the problem with electing too many people with law background to a parliament: They think it's a Model United Nations session and if they can get things their way despite many real world consequences, they celebrate with joy as our governance becomes literally ungovernable.
- Where are all those "as an EU citizen" commenters? You are but a subject of an ultra-national government whose sole objective is ever increased control over your life and euros.
- So they will pass it until is a yes?
by elzbardico
2 subcomments
- They never quit.
They just waited for something else to dominate the news, so they could fly it under the radar.
The war started, so, they felt it was now or never.
- I'm happy that the Netherlands is still against this. Our currently largest party (D66) was also always pretty strong on privacy. When I contacted them some time back (I think using this initiative), they ensured me that they remained against, but did feel that something must be done (ok fair enough).
- > The "Chat Control" proposal would legalise scanning of all private digital communications, including encrypted messages and photos.
How would this be enforced in practice? In other words, what would prevent E.U. users from using encrypted services outside of the jurisdiction of the E.U., to "illegally" encrypt their hard drives or to run their own private encrypted comms servers?
by foweltschmerz
7 subcomments
- This is the same EU that blocks and hinders innovation in the name of privacy?
by exceptione
0 subcomment
- I am not oblivious to the intent behind this push, but even if you focus solely on the technicalities the idea falls apart. Even with only client-side verification this will be a big privacy intrusion. I see current AI's flag prompts for the most stupid reasons for using words that might possibly occur in non-safe contexts too. The human experience is just too complex for a machine to understand.
To properly assess something, you need to be bodied in reality, being related to the other human in the same human reality. All the datacenters of the world combined will fail the stated objectives, let alone a stupid phone chip. We should not allow computers to take on the role of policing actors in our human reality, because they even can't perform that role faithfully.
- If you consider who is monitoring us, it's obvious that this is for the benefit of those in power.
by iamskeole
1 subcomments
- It seems the vote passed [1], meaning the existing Regulation [(EU) 2021/1232] was _extended_ until August 3 2027, with some amendments to the previous text:
- added targeted scanning requirement
- scanning must be “targeted, specified and limited… where there are reasonable grounds of suspicion… identified by a judicial authority”
[1] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/TA-10-2026-007...
by smeggysmeg
0 subcomment
- It can fail 100 times and it won't count, and the one time this surveillance legislation passes it will become law. Thanks EU, nice show of democracy.
- Just a heads up that this is being posted late in the European evening here, so that will affect who's commenting.
- It's really hard to not become a euroskeptic, despite being involved with so many EU related things from my youth to now in which I believed wholeheartedly, but this is just... I know - they just need to win once, we need to win every time.
- Fun fact: the parties that want this are actually those who criticise the EU the most
- Great that MPs are apparently exempt from the scanning. As if there aren’t enough high profile menaces in power.
Either include everyone, or accept it’s an awful idea for security and exempt everyone.
- DONT forget that this legislation is the result of a Lobby of META
- The EU is a horribly intransparent and dubiously democratic institution.
As a normal citizen you have no real possibility to hold MEPs accountable other then writing an angry E-Mail.
In an actually democratic system politicians would be in their position only by mercy of the people and can be voted down from their position anytime if enough people petition for it. (and not just maybe be called back when elections at home plummet)
Politicians should be afraid of the people and not the other way round.
- You can directly call your representatives by looking them up here:
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/portal/en
- Curious how they plan to handle encrypted attachments — scanning has to happen either before encryption (client-side) or after decryption (server-side). If E2EE is preserved end-to-end, there's literally no point in the pipeline where a third party can scan without the client's cooperation. So either E2EE breaks, or the law is unenforceable by design.
- Let the damn politicans go first and make all their private messages public. Yes everything from boring I'm stuck in traffic honey over nudes to insider trading and lobbying.
- So EU syill wants to harm children.
- The US doesn't even have to ask, people already give AI providers all their data and full control over all their devices.
by HelloUsername
2 subcomments
- Why's there '?foo=bar' in the URL?
by SanjayMehta
0 subcomment
- I love this. These are the same people who create think tanks and "international courts" to point fingers at "third world" countries for "authoritarianism," "freedom of speech."
Hypocrisy par supreme
- Nice website! Sadly, url stays the same across all coutries. I can't send anyone direct link.
by 21asdffdsa12
0 subcomment
- Do your part- photograph your ass every day, send the pictures to your representative and EU parliament member.. they need to know. Volunteer the knowledge they crave.
- Yeah that didn't take long. Of course they keep pushing it. I knew the big 'win' of the 11th was a bit premature and overcelebrated.
The dark forces behind all this set to gain a lot of profits once it passes :(
- results here:
https://portal.assisteu.eu/european_parliament/plenary/votes...
You can find how present MEPs voted
There are 10 votings (not only one), some adopted and some rejected, I am not sure what that means, maybe someone can elaborate.
- The new definition of democracy and freedom is:
- censoreship
- propaganda
- ban of oppositions (anti globalist, conservative parties)
- NO privacy
- Few days ago we had a guy explaining to us at the top of hn page that we should migrate data to europe. Sometimes I miss the internet of before mass surveillance abd ads everywhere
by mastermedo
0 subcomment
- What does this mean for a non-eu citizen communicating with an eu citizen? Is it as simple as using signal/matrix instead of whatsapp/messenger?
- so much for 'democracy'
keep voting until you get the right answer
at least EU are voting I suppose. some governments just go ahead and mass-surveil illegally
- What do you have to hide except for a couple possible Nudey pics
- But don't worry, exceptions for ALL officials are built in. And I do mean ALL officials. In this bill, for example, pedophile gym teachers are perfectly safe from getting scanned.
Gym teachers are also the largest group of people convicted for pedophilia. So you can be sure they are keeping their priorities straight. States, and the monopoly telco's are also protected from paying even the tiniest amount of money for companies to do these scans, all costs are entirely offloaded to app developers.
So the priorities are clear:
1) protecting the state from even the tiniest amount of responsibility, even at the cost of children getting abused
2) keeping some 50 foreign states from the same
3) keeping a whole list of organizations safe from inspections
4) keeping the state safe from actually spending any amount of money on these scans
...
n) protecting children
- So much for "digital soverignty".
by petterroea
0 subcomment
- They only need to win once, while the public has to fight back every time. Incredibly demotivating
by ZetsuBouKyo
0 subcomment
- it's probably best to go with client-side encryption and share keys with friends privately. that pretty much fixes all the privacy issues after the initial registration, but maintaining that extension with all the company and their updates is a bit of a headache.
by baal80spam
0 subcomment
- But of course it's back.
- They should just ask the Americans. If you are not a US citizen you have zero rights, and any old creep in Silicon Valley can riffle through your personal information with impunity.
I realize I am just recapitulating the modus operandi of Five Eyes here...
by frail_figure
0 subcomment
- Good news, we held out strong!
- ofc, they only need to get it approved once. they will try until they succeed
- The lack of accountability after what was exposed in the Epstein files illustrates that not one in power actually care about kids.
"Save the kids", is just a ploy to run scams.
- I honestly think these lawmakers have no idea how deep this rabbit hole goes - it's not possible to implement what they are proposing.
by hsuduebc2
3 subcomments
- I absolutely don't understand how anyone can support this in the context of rising authoritarianism. Even people in my country which are talking about this phenomena support it. I strongly suspect that they do absolutely know shit about why it's problematic.
I wonder if they would support that every of paper mail would be opened and checked. I strongly doubt that.
by WhereIsTheTruth
0 subcomment
- They want to do what US Big Tech already is doing
Y'all are bunch of hypocrites
by sayYayToLife
1 subcomments
- Imagine the outrage if this happened in the US instead because it's in Europe there's just a bunch of apologists here.
The longer I live I think US citizens just have the highest standards for both morals and life expectations.
Meanwhile Europe is happy to get anything.
- Framing this as the EU's attempt is antieuropean propaganda.
It is the Conservatives attempt. The EU parliament is the entity that shot it down last time.
- See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47522647
by littlestymaar
0 subcomment
- Reminder: it's not the “EU”, it's the PPE (the union of conservative European parties), and the national governments.
- It’s now EOD Thursday. What was the conclusion of the vote?
(not shown on the chat control website as far as I can tell)
- Those are Conservatives from EPP group, not some "The EU". Let's be literal.
by mediumsmart
0 subcomment
- private messages are unrecorded audio and private photos come out of instant cameras. Good luck scanning that.
- The trick here is to make it impossible to do so.
Don’t put your shit in the cloud and use proper E2E secure messaging.
For me the entire idea of the cloud is dead due to exposure like this.
- why are the epsteinists so obsessed with destroying our freedoms and privacy?
by tjwebbnorfolk
2 subcomments
- does this violate GDPR?
- [dead]
by iam_circuit
0 subcomment
- [dead]
- [dead]
- [dead]
by marsven_422
0 subcomment
- [dead]
by elzbardico
2 subcomments
- [flagged]
by _the_inflator
1 subcomments
- Let’s migrate our apps to the EU!
Trump Derangement Syndrome is widespread in Europe. Quality of life has gotten so bad and continuous to decline except for mainly Poland and Hungary.
And what do systems cling to especially in situations like these? Surveillance.
Another massive not so funny joke once again hit Germany the week ago - a smear campaign and hit piece to justify even more censorship.
Germany is going down the drain - and the elite is trying to silence freedom of speech massively while ignoring doing what’s important and what’s right.
Have fun migrating your app to the EU. No one is coming to save you especially not your shitty infrastructure. Energy crisis, and devs think it is a good idea to go for 2% uptime in the near future.
It is so ridiculous.
by shevy-java
0 subcomment
- They hate us for our freedoms.
A shame the EU is just simulation of democracy.
Best case in point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatar_corruption_scandal_at_th...
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