Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

SoylentNews is powered by your submissions, so send in your scoop. Only 9 submissions in the queue.

Anti-Encryption EU Consultation Open Until April 15th

posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday April 13 2021, @12:35PM   Printer-friendly
from the is-the-signup-page-encrypted? dept.

canopic jug writes:

MEP Patrick Breyer, representing Germany via the Pirate Party, has written that there is a short time left to provide input to the public consultation on the proposal to eliminate encrypted services in Europe. The deadline is April 15th. He goes over the key survey questions to pay particular attention to, the gist of the draft legislation is as follows:

  • The EU Commission is drafting permanent legislation on the automatic searching of all online activities, including personal electronic mail and messages of each citizen, for suspicious content in the search for child pornography. Suspected cases would be notified to the police. An online consultation is underway until 15 April. It includes questions on whether private communications should be covered and whether backdoors to end-to-end encrypted communications services should be required to enable this monitoring.
  • Such privatised mass surveillance is unprecedented in western democracies and would have unacceptable consequences for our freedom of communications and expression. According to police reports, in the vast majority of cases, innocent citizens come under suspicion of having committed an offence due to unreliable processes.
  • Therefore, please participate in the ongoing consultation. The responses will be taken into account by the Commission when deciding on the content of the planned legislation. So far, almost only child protection organizations and industry stakeholders have participated.
  • The public consultation on chat control legislation is open until 15 April: https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-say/initiatives/12726-Child-sexual-abuse-online-detection-removal-and-reporting-/public-consultation

To participate, you need to create an account as well as be able to vote in the EU.

Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Anti-Encryption EU Consultation Open Until April 15th | Log In/Create an Account | Top | 24 comments | Search Discussion
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

  • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 13 2021, @02:42PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 13 2021, @02:42PM (#1137011)

    'Think of the Children' has been the go-to fig leaf for the most malicious authoritarians since at least the late '30s*. Denying law abiding citizens access to encryption in this networked age is akin to denying people the right to lock their doors. No good can come of it and those pushing such draconian measures have never cared one whit about their purported justifications.

    *At risk of Godwin: I'm not saying that it is evil because Hitler did it. I'm saying that Hitler was evil because he did it.

    Starting Score:    0  points
    Moderation   +2  
       Insightful=1, Informative=1, Total=2
    Extra 'Informative' Modifier   0  
    Total Score:   2  

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 13 2021, @03:53PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 13 2021, @03:53PM (#1137037)

    Denying law abiding citizens access to encryption in this networked age is akin to denying people the right to lock their doors.

    The problem is legislators don't know what is internet. People will think that 'google is internet' or 'facebook', but then they don't know. Talking about right to encryption will do nothing as they don't understand the fundamentals.

    I work at a software development company. I just had to explain that Github is not Git. That git is distributed, and works without network. Network is just for syncing. And it blew people's minds (at least some). So, don't expect politicians to know what internet is. Making bad analogies doesn't really help. They actually need feedback to understand.

    So yeah, world is not coming to an end. And technology proposal is dead on arrival.

    To sum it up, what they appear to want to do is throw money at a problem and make some prevention center where 3rd party providers would throw data at and it would then return CP=(percentage). Then they would have to do something about it. Basically, a copyright filter but CP. Sadly, it's not that easy. Major providers like Google or Facebook already do this and have advanced tech for detection. EC can't really take a lead there. What they could do is provide better facility for coordination. But like I said, it's not a tech issue. It's a human problem.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 13 2021, @06:05PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 13 2021, @06:05PM (#1137081)

      They know full well what the internet is, or rather, their paymasters do. The ultimate purpose of all legislation is to remove competitors for the big players --- who're as a rule going to be in cahoots with the powers that be.