Report from Tech Radar
In Brief – Germany and Luxembourg joined the list of EU member states that are opposing the latest version of the child sexual abuse material (CSAM) message scanning bill, dubbed the Chat Control regulation, on the eve of the September 12 meeting of the European Council. Eight countries are reported to now oppose the version put forward by current council president Denmark, with Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Finland, the Netherlands, and Poland already dissenting. The draft Regulation to Prevent and Combat Child Sexual Abuse requires messaging services operating in Europe to scan users’ chats for CSAM material before the content is encrypted. The proposal has raised repeated concerns from privacy and civil liberties advocates since its initial introduction in 2022, as well as from cryptography experts and researchers who argue that there is no technical way to undermine or circumvent encryption on behalf of state security agencies without undermining privacy and security for all users of a system. Germany’s position on the regulation, which they had opposed in recent years, was less clear following recent changes in government, became increasingly important because the block of countries backing the regulation could not reach the necessary threshold of 65% of the EU population without Germany’s backing. The EU Justice Ministers may formally vote on the matter on October 14.
Context – The battle over encryption between defenders of privacy and civil liberties, and those arguing that strong encryption protects criminals, is decades old. Beyond the EU’s Chat Control bill, similar criticism has been leveled against the EARN IT Act in the US, and both the Online Safety Act and the Investigatory Powers Act in the UK. In January, the UK Government reportedly demanded that Apple give its security services the ability to access fully encrypted data uploaded to Apple’s iCloud storage by any user globally, creating a heated diplomatic and technology industry standoff, with the Starmer Government eventually withdrawing the demand in August.