the confidentiality of private messages in Europe, threatened?

Protection of children from sexual abuse: this is the objective of “Chat control”, a nickname given – by its opponents – to the measure contained in a draft European text which would establish surveillance of electronic messaging. It was to be examined on Thursday but was ultimately canceled, ten days before the end of the Belgian presidency of the European Union.

Access private messages, including those that are end-to-end encrypted, to scan them to protect children from sexual abuse, or guarantee the confidentiality of exchanges by giving up a means of identifying the authors of messages containing images and child pornography links: this is the choice faced by the Belgian presidency of the European Union, the day before yesterday, postponing a new examination of the text, two years after the first presentation of the project.

It had become apparent, in the preceding hours, that the required qualified majority would not be achieved in the face of what Edward Snowden, the whistleblower, described on Tuesday evening, on the X network, as “terrifying mass surveillance device”.

For her part, the president of Signal, the encrypted messaging service, had threatened – Monday – to leave the European market, citing the risk of vulnerability induced by what the text calls “moderation when sending” : in short, the examination of photos and links contained in messages, before they are sent. Meredith Whittaker had warned against the weakening of message encryption, with the creation of computer backdoors from which hackers, particularly those serving nations hostile to democracy, could be the first beneficiaries.

What would this regulation change if it were adopted? It would require messaging services like WhatsApp, Messenger, Signal or Telegram to provide access to all the images and links that users send, and therefore, very concretely, this would amount to eliminating end-to-end encryption, which use most of these services.

The text provides for warning the user, in the conditions of use of the service to be approved, that images and links will be scanned. And if he refuses, then he won’t be able to share them. For opponents of Chat Control, private and encrypted communications are – indeed – one of the cornerstones of modern democracies.

The postponement of the examination of the text would therefore be due to the evolution of the balance of power between supporters and opponents of the controversial measure. To be adopted, it will need the support of at least 15 member states representing at least 65% of the population: it is this required qualified majority that would have been missing on Thursday. However, just before the moment when the text should have been examined if it had remained on the agenda, Germany, Austria, Poland, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic were rather against.

The text will therefore soon be managed by the new Hungarian presidency of the European Union, from July 1. Viktor Orban, the Hungarian Prime Minister, would be very supportive.