>Now Paris “on the whole” agrees with the draft. France welcomes both mandatory chat control and client-side scanning.
A few months ago, a broad security law was passed by the National Assembly in France. Initially, this law contained provisions, including the scanning of private messages, which were removed from the main text by a large majority of lawmakers, as it was deemed too intrusive.
The few officials (including Macron) who now claim that "France is OK with chat control" represent a minority that currently holds power in a country whose government was ousted less than two weeks ago.
If you have been watching the world in 2025 you know Tor is gradually becoming essential. Install the Tor Browser and search for free speech in the hidden service HTTP response dumps here: https://rnsaffn.com/zg4/ Not censored, not safe for work, sorry.
What I don't understand is, why don't the authorities think the actual bad guys will avoid the surveillance?
It seems to me that organized crime will find their own solution, and the rest of us will occasionally have a snooping policeman checking our private messages. It's not unknown, even in Denmark, that people who are given access to private data will abuse it, eg snooping on ex girlfriends, that kind of thing.
Why do people think this chat control thing will be effective?
Will Chat Control be retrospective? I.e. once it's implemented will governments have access to all previous communications or just those from that point onwards? Also how does it work geographically? Is it based on my location, where my phone was made/bought, something else...?
Can somebody explain to me how backdooring every app does not lead to the real risk of an entire population's bank accounts being emptied, or similar more hidden but widespread attacks that absolutely cripple any country doing this? Almost immediately, enemy State actors will have almost as complete access as the government passing the law; blackmail will become trivial; they could just subtly weaken adversaries nonstop over the years for a more patient return, etc? It just seems ridiculously dangerous. How is having a single point of failure (or handful of points of failure) for an entire country or continent defensible simply from the perspective of opsec?
The online Stasi analogies are simplistic. This is (mostly) about Tech companies' money, namely:
- Palantir Technologies
- 'not-for-profit' Thorn
> The Commission’s failure to identify the list of experts as falling within the scope of the complainant’s public access request constitutes maladministration. [0]
> ... the complainant contended that the precision rate of technologies like those developed by the organisation are often overestimated. It is therefore essential that any technical claims made by the organisation concerned are made public as this would facilitate the critical assessment of the proposal. [1]
> The Commission presented a proposal on preventing and combating child sexual abuse, looking in particular at detecting child pornography. In this context, it has mentioned that support could be provided by the software of the controversial American company Palantir... [2]
> Is Palantir’s failure to register on the Transparency Register compatible with the Commission’s transparency commitments? [2]
(Palantir only entered the Transparency Registry in March 2025 despite being a multi million vendor for Europol and European Agencies for more than a decade)
> No detailed records exist concerning a January meeting between European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and the CEO of controversial US data analytics firm Palantir [3]
> Kutcher and CEO Julie Cordua held several meetings with EU officials from 2020 to 2023 - before the former stepped down from his role - including European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson, and European Parliament President Roberta Metsola.[4]
> The Ombudsman further concluded that Thorn had indeed influenced the legislative process of the CSAM regulation. “It is clear, for example, from the Commission’s impact assessment that the input provided by Thorn significantly informed the Commission’s decision-making. The public interest in disclosure is thus self-evident. [4]
> EU Ombudsman Emily O’Reilly has announced that she has opened an investigation into the transfer of two former Europol officials to the chat control surveillance tech provider Thorn. [5]
What if we went the other direction - push chat control but on government and rich folks? Make them fully transparent as the price of power/influence, and leave normies opaque?
am I understanding correctly that Chat Control will use AI to scan the text of every private message, and automatically report suspected "grooming attempts" to police? how the hell do they think that will work? does the AI know that the message recipient is a minor? that the message sender is an adult? that "want to meet up tonight?" is sent by a pedophile to a stranger's kid for an illicit rendezvous, and not by a dad to his son to work on a science fair project?
this is just bananas crazy. so many lives will be ruined by false positives. the chilling effect will be like an Arctic snowstorm. and any actual groomers will find ways to disable it.
40 comments
[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 55.9 ms ] threadA few months ago, a broad security law was passed by the National Assembly in France. Initially, this law contained provisions, including the scanning of private messages, which were removed from the main text by a large majority of lawmakers, as it was deemed too intrusive.
The few officials (including Macron) who now claim that "France is OK with chat control" represent a minority that currently holds power in a country whose government was ousted less than two weeks ago.
Crooks.
It seems to me that organized crime will find their own solution, and the rest of us will occasionally have a snooping policeman checking our private messages. It's not unknown, even in Denmark, that people who are given access to private data will abuse it, eg snooping on ex girlfriends, that kind of thing.
Why do people think this chat control thing will be effective?
- Palantir Technologies
- 'not-for-profit' Thorn
> The Commission’s failure to identify the list of experts as falling within the scope of the complainant’s public access request constitutes maladministration. [0]
> ... the complainant contended that the precision rate of technologies like those developed by the organisation are often overestimated. It is therefore essential that any technical claims made by the organisation concerned are made public as this would facilitate the critical assessment of the proposal. [1]
> The Commission presented a proposal on preventing and combating child sexual abuse, looking in particular at detecting child pornography. In this context, it has mentioned that support could be provided by the software of the controversial American company Palantir... [2]
> Is Palantir’s failure to register on the Transparency Register compatible with the Commission’s transparency commitments? [2]
(Palantir only entered the Transparency Registry in March 2025 despite being a multi million vendor for Europol and European Agencies for more than a decade)
> No detailed records exist concerning a January meeting between European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and the CEO of controversial US data analytics firm Palantir [3]
> Kutcher and CEO Julie Cordua held several meetings with EU officials from 2020 to 2023 - before the former stepped down from his role - including European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson, and European Parliament President Roberta Metsola.[4]
> The Ombudsman further concluded that Thorn had indeed influenced the legislative process of the CSAM regulation. “It is clear, for example, from the Commission’s impact assessment that the input provided by Thorn significantly informed the Commission’s decision-making. The public interest in disclosure is thus self-evident. [4]
> EU Ombudsman Emily O’Reilly has announced that she has opened an investigation into the transfer of two former Europol officials to the chat control surveillance tech provider Thorn. [5]
[0] https://www.ombudsman.europa.eu/en/decision/en/176658
[1] https://www.ombudsman.europa.eu/en/recommendation/en/179395
[2] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-9-2024-00016...
[3] https://www.euractiv.com/news/commission-kept-no-records-on-...
[4] https://www.euronews.com/next/2024/07/18/european-ombudsman-...
[5] https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/chat-control-eu-ombudsman-l...
this is just bananas crazy. so many lives will be ruined by false positives. the chilling effect will be like an Arctic snowstorm. and any actual groomers will find ways to disable it.