The EU still wants to scan your private messages and photos • Hacker News Board

Re: The EU still wants to scan your private messages and photos

#121

Post by follie » Wed, Mar 25, 2026, 9:50 PM UTC

derefr wrote: post #13

So... if we all care so much about shooting down the bad idea, why is nobody proposing opposite legislation: a bill enshrining a right to private communications, such that bills like this one would become impossible to even table? Is it just that there's no "privacy lobby" interested in getting even one lawyer around to sit down and write it up? Or is there at least one such bill floating around, but no EU member sta…

I think the greatest risk to the EU is the sheer volume of communications it allows to travel without end-to-end encryption. Financial, infrastructure, personal political sentiment.. What doesn't a foreign enemy get volumes of minable data on?

Re: The EU still wants to scan your private messages and photos

#122

Post by EmbarrassedHelp » Wed, Mar 25, 2026, 9:52 PM UTC

pcrh wrote: post #38

vrganj wrote: post #3

Framing this as the EU's attempt is antieuropean propaganda. It is the Conservatives attempt. The EU parliament is the entity that shot it down last time.

Exactly. EU legislation is currently far more respecting of privacy than is legislation in the UK or the US. For various, and unclear, reasons, there is substantial backing to change this.

In the UK, Apple is now blocking users from using any web browser to access "non-PG" content unless the user submits to privacy violating age verification. Apple blocks you at the OS level, making VPNs useless.

Re: The EU still wants to scan your private messages and photos

#123

Post by amarant » Wed, Mar 25, 2026, 9:53 PM UTC

vaylian wrote: post #91

derefr wrote: post #13

So... if we all care so much about shooting down the bad idea, why is nobody proposing opposite legislation: a bill enshrining a right to private communications, such that bills like this one would become impossible to even table? Is it just that there's no "privacy lobby" interested in getting even one lawyer around to sit down and write it up? Or is there at least one such bill floating around, but no EU member sta…

Past laws of this type are: - The GDPR - The ePrivacy directive, which is explicitly derogated (sabotaged) by chat control 1.0

If this law, or some future version of it, passes, I will derive great pleasure from a simple bash script sending a gdpr right to be forgotten request to eye European parliament in a daily basis

Re: The EU still wants to scan your private messages and photos

#124

Post by AnssiH » Wed, Mar 25, 2026, 9:54 PM UTC

Stagnant wrote: post #33

Okay so I had to look in to it because the site is not really doing a good job explaining it at all. Turns out[0] that they are voting for the extension of the temporary regulation thats been in effect since 2021 (Regulation (EU) 2021/1232). So this is about the "voluntary scanning of private communications" (which is still bad, but has been in effect for almost 5 years already). [0]: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/s…

Here is the regulation that will be voted on: https://oeil.europarl.europa.eu/oeil/en/procedure-file?refer...

Note that the amendment was already amended on 11th March to set expiry to Aug 2027 and to also exclude E2E communications.

Re: The EU still wants to scan your private messages and photos

#125

Post by NexRebular » Wed, Mar 25, 2026, 9:55 PM UTC

Zufriedenheit wrote: post #108

dgxyz wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can refuse to use software that does it.

If they force their spyware into Android/iOS you are running out of options.

Gotta get back in time. The Symbian S60/S80 platform will rise again!

Re: The EU still wants to scan your private messages and photos

#126

Post by afh1 » Wed, Mar 25, 2026, 9:56 PM UTC

Where are all those "as an EU citizen" commenters? You are but a subject of an ultra-national government whose sole objective is ever increased control over your life and euros.

Re: The EU still wants to scan your private messages and photos

#127

Post by gib444 » Wed, Mar 25, 2026, 9:57 PM UTC

tjwebbnorfolk wrote: post #110

does this violate GDPR?

Maybe...in a world where lawmakers didn't put huge exemptions into GDPR for governments and law enforcement etc. Which they did.

Re: The EU still wants to scan your private messages and photos

#128

Post by spwa4 » Wed, Mar 25, 2026, 10:01 PM UTC

But don't worry, exceptions for ALL officials are built in. And I do mean ALL officials. In this bill, for example, pedophile gym teachers are perfectly safe from getting scanned.

Gym teachers are also the largest group of people convicted for pedophilia. So you can be sure they are keeping their priorities straight. States, and the monopoly telco's are also protected from paying even the tiniest amount of money for companies to do these scans, all costs are entirely offloaded to app developers.

So the priorities are clear:

1) protecting the state from even the tiniest amount of responsibility, even at the cost of children getting abused

2) keeping some 50 foreign states from the same

3) keeping a whole list of organizations safe from inspections

4) keeping the state safe from actually spending any amount of money on these scans

...

n) protecting children

Re: The EU still wants to scan your private messages and photos

#129

Post by spwa4 » Wed, Mar 25, 2026, 10:03 PM UTC

layer8 wrote: post #75

narmiouh wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It clearly states here in 2 “consent of the person concerned OR some other legitimate basis laid down the law”, any random law will trump personal consent

It doesn’t remove the “right to the protection of personal data concerning him or her.” The law cannot be random, it must ensure “fair processing” and be limited to “specific purposes”, and the European Court of Justice as well as the ECHR will decide what constitutes a “legitimate basis” in that context. Furthermore, “Everyone has the right of access to data which has been collected concerning him or her”, which ens…

Secrecy of correspondence only applies to sealed physical letters, so it has zero applicability to this law and provides zero protection against scanning of private messages.

Also it isn't respected in most types of criminal trials. If a sealed physical letter is opened and proves fraud, for example ...

Re: The EU still wants to scan your private messages and photos

#130

Post by adammarples » Wed, Mar 25, 2026, 10:04 PM UTC

jiggawatts wrote: post #70

elzbardico wrote: post #9

They never quit. They just waited for something else to dominate the news, so they could fly it under the radar. The war started, so, they felt it was now or never.

Who is "they"? That's the key question! There's a small group of very powerful people that keep pushing this agenda. Who are those people? Find out. Publicize their names. Make their corruption visible and linked to their identity . In case anyone has an issue with this: Remember! This is what they want! For you! Not for them. Only the plebs.

This isn't a conspiracy... "They" are the EPP, a democratically elected party acting fully in public with their names attached to everything.