Chat Control 2.0 is the proposal from the European Commission to scan and monitor private messages and images on our mobile devices and computers which could be indicative of sexual exploitation towards children online.
The argument to interrogate private and personal data, encouraged by online safety actors, can collide with the broadly understood idea of privacy. Andre Catry, Senior Advisor, Advokatfirman Kahn Pedersen says “scanning should take place directly in your and my equipment” but that the practice now normalised in policing to keep children safe can also be called eavesdropping.
The proposal effectively “means a total ban on end-to-end encryption for ordinary citizens” which is provided on messaging apps like WhatsApp priding itself on facilitating safe and secure conversations between senders and recipients.
The total encryption ban “could open doors for both authorities and malicious actors to gain access to sensitive information”.
“In addition, the surveillance risks being abused by political leaders, business leaders and IT staff, threatening the individual’s privacy”.
He argued trying to combat a crime with mass surveillance that often only leads to fines as a punishment is “disproportionate” and instead authorities and tech companies should increase the liability and penalties for these crimes. Detecting exploitation through technology and humans needs to be carefully balanced with “preserving fundamental rights”.
Chat Control 2.0 should generate a concerted effort to raise solutions that protect against crime and preserve our freedoms.
Pedersen said proper vendors who “really know the technology” should be recruited to detect unsafe communications. Regardless, too restrictive privacy controls can be bypassed by experienced professionals and fraudsters, with the original problem remaining.
The broader discussion “exposes an abysmal lack of knowledge among our decision-makers, who have easily been misled by interest groups with both legitimate purposes and financial interests in selling technical “solutions” to the problem”.
