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The EU still wants to scan your private messages and photos

fightchatcontrol.eu

171–180 of 432 posts

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

#171
post #129
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ...

Secrecy of correspondence still has exceptions. That's what is always lost in these discussions -- every right of every person is not absolute. Just because you have a right to personal property, doesn't mean you don't have to pay taxes or store nuclear material in your basement. That's the hard part.

But end to end encryption with forward secrecy at no cost to user makes your right to private communication absolute. It's a new thing and the balancers can't balance it against other rights of other people, so this happens.

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

#172
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoting from the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union , https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:12... : "Article 7 Respect for private and family life Everyone has the right to respect for his or her private and family life, home and communications. Article 8 Protection of personal data 1. Everyone has the right to the protection of personal data concerning him or her. 2. Such data mu…

Let's parse this a little. Article 7 codifies "respect for [one's] private life" and "respect for [one's] private communications". Well, "respect" is a vague notion. This does not clearly imply that the government is not allowed to read your communications, or otherwise spy on you, if it believes it has good reason. It will do so "respectfully", or supposedly minimize the intrusion etc. As for article 8: Here it is "…

> This does not clearly imply that the government is not allowed to read your communications, or otherwise spy on you, if it believes it has good reason. It will do so "respectfully", or supposedly minimize the intrusion etc.

Which is... okay? Government gonna government, that's what we pay it to do.

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

#173
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The majority of the MEPs are not onboard mandatory scanning, otherwise that would've been passed already. The site is conflating mandatory scanning with voluntary scanning (status quo). The upcoming vote is about continuing the voluntary scanning (which would otherwise expire).

> voluntary scanning What is that? A setting in OS?

Service could voluntary opt-out, like Pavel Durov did.

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

#175
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 don't think that's a very sensical right (like most rights, frankly). Everyone has limits to the privacy they can expect. But we should have a social contract where we can expect privacy between mutually consenting parties intending to have private communication (eg not in a public square) without reasonable suspicion of a crime being committed.

>... without reasonable suspicion of a crime being committed.

How is that supposed to work with e2e encrypted chats?

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

#176
post #161
post #126

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.

As a EU citizen, it pisses me off that the US is (with others outside the EU) trying this hard to lobby to undermine our democracy and freedom of speech. https://digitalcourage.social/@echo_pbreyer/1162053712243153... And I’d still take this clusterfuck over the alternative current state of the US. At least this situation we can (and have been) striking down, despite all the naysayers on HN. Here’s to hoping we’re ab…

[flagged]

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

#177
post #66

I am the creator of Fight Chat Control. Thank you for sharing. It is unfortunately, once again, needed. The recent events have been rather dumbfounding. On March 11, the Parliament surprisingly voted to replace blanket mass surveillance with targeted monitoring of suspects following judicial involvement [0]. As Council refused to compromise, the trilogue negotiations were set to fail, thus allowing the Commission's c…

I swear to god if the UK gives the world yet MORE surveillance state...

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

#178
post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's a very sensical right (like most rights, frankly). Everyone has limits to the privacy they can expect. But we should have a social contract where we can expect privacy between mutually consenting parties intending to have private communication (eg not in a public square) without reasonable suspicion of a crime being committed.

Technology means there is only one truly stable compromise, imo: I am free to use whatever technical means at my disposal to encrypt my communications and those of my customers (!), and you can try to read them as much as you want. Combined with the right to communicate across borders, you can get quite a bit of privacy: a server in both sides of a geopolitical conflict and they've got to collaborate to track you. An…

> a server in both sides of a geopolitical conflict and they've got to collaborate to track you.

With a server on the other side of a geopolitical conflict (actual conflict, not a mere discontinuity in legalscape) you trade a risk of the government reading your chats for a risk of the same government (which you don't trust for a good reason) locking you up for treason and espionage.

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

#179
post #7
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.

This. There's a very specific group of twisted people that drive this, but equating that with the entire EU is flat out wrong.

Who are those people?

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

#180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Over the last two decades Hungary reversed course from a democracy joining the west to an authoritarian dictatorship in bed with the Russians. Hence, everything their government does is the opposite of what a typical European Union member would approve of.

I wonder what it would take to expel them from the EU...

It's simply not possible. EU law has no provisions for kicking a malignant country out. It was simply not foreseen. They can only decide to leave themselves. Which orban will never do because his oligarchs make billions off EU subsidies.

If it were it would have happened already.

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