The EU states have agreed on a common position on chat control. We publish the bill.
Last week, the Council working group discussed the law. We shall once again publish the classified minutes of the meeting.
Tomorrow, the Permanent Representatives want to officially decide on the position.
Update 19.10.: A Council spokesperson tells us, “The agenda item has been postponed until next week.”
Three years of dispute
For three and a half years, the EU institutions have been arguing over chat control. The Commission intends to oblige Internet services to search the content of their users without cause for information on criminal offences and to send them to authorities if suspected.
Parliament calls this mass surveillance and calls for only unencrypted content from suspects to be scanned.
A majority of EU countries want mandatory chat control. However, a blocking minority rejects this. Now the Council has agreed on a compromise. Internet services are not required to chat control, but may carry out a voluntary chat control.
Absolute red lines
The Danish Presidency wants to bring the draft law through the Council “as soon as possible” so that the trilogue negotiations can be started in a timely manner. The feedback from the states should be limited to “absolute red lines”.
The majority of states “supported the compromise proposal.” At least 15 spoke out in favour, including Germany and France.
Germany “welcomed both the deletion of the mandatory measures and the permanent anchoring of voluntary measures.”
Italy also sees voluntary chat control as skeptical. “We fear that the instrument could also be extended to other crimes, so we have difficulty supporting the proposal.” Politicians have already called for chat control to be extended to other content.
Absolute minimum consensus
Other states called the compromise “an absolute minimum consensus.” They “actually wanted more – especially in the sense of commitments.” Some states “showed themselves clearly disappointed by the cancellations made.”
Spain, in particular, “still considered mandatory measures to be necessary, unfortunately, a comprehensive agreement on this was not possible.” Hungary, too, “saw volunteerism as the sole concept as too little.”
Spain, Hungary and Bulgaria proposed “an obligation for providers to have to expose at least in open areas.” The Danish Presidency “described the proposal as ambitious, but did not take it up to avoid further discussion.”
Denmark explicitly pointed to the review clause. Thus, “the possibility of detection orders is kept open at a later date.” Hungary stressed that “this possibility must also be used.”
No obligation
The Danish Presidency had publicly announced that the chat control should not be mandatory, but voluntary.
However, the formulated compromise proposal was contradictory. She had deleted the article on mandatory chat control. However, another article said services should also carry out voluntary measures.
Several states have asked whether these formulations “could lead to a de facto obligation.” The Legal Services agreed: “The wording can be interpreted in both directions.” The Presidency of the Council “clarified that the text only had a risk mitigation obligation, but not a commitment to detection.”
The day after the meeting, the presidency of the Council sent out the likely final draft law of the Council. It states explicitly: ‘No provision of this Regulation shall be interpreted as imposing obligations of detection obligations on providers’.
Damage and abuse
Mandatory chat control is not the only issue in the planned law. Voluntary chat control is also prohibited. The European Commission cannot prove its proportionality. Many oppose voluntary chat control, including the EU Commission, the European Data Protection Supervisor and the German Data Protection Supervisor.
A number of scientists are critical of the compromise proposal. The voluntary chat control does not designate it to be appropriate. “Their benefit is not proven, while the potential for harm and abuse is enormous.”
The law also calls for mandatory age checks. The scientists criticize that age checks “bring with it an inherent and disproportionate risk of serious data breaches and discrimination without guaranteeing their effectiveness.” The Federal Data Protection Officer also fears a “large-scale abolition of anonymity on the Internet.”
Now follows Trilog
The EU countries will not discuss these points further. The Danish Presidency “reaffirmed its commitment to the compromise proposal without the Spanish proposals.”
The Permanent Representatives of the EU States will meet next week. In December, the justice and interior ministers meet. These two bodies are to adopt the bill as the official position of the Council.
This is followed by the trilogue. There, the Commission, Parliament and the Council negotiate to reach a compromise from their three separate bills.
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A “risk mitigation obligation” can be used to explain anything and obligate spying through whatever services the EU says there is “risk”
Considering the whole proposal was shot down several times in the past years and even past month, using a back door rush to push this through is not how a democracy is supposed to function at all. And this is how fascism grips it’s iron claws. What is going on in Demark?
