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Are there any primary sources for this? I'm having trouble finding anything talking about any final legislative action involving chat control/ePrivacy etc. tha

by edrxty 5y ago

Are there any primary sources for this? I'm having trouble finding anything talking about any final legislative action involving chat control/ePrivacy etc. that isn't this random pirate party blog.

em3rgent0rdr 5y ago
https://www.politico.eu/article/european-parliament-platforms-child-sexual-abuse-reporting-law/ https://www.politico.eu/article/european-parliament-platform...
- scandox 5y ago
  This is a much better source of information than the headline link. It describes how this came about, what its limitations are and just gives a whole lot more context. Of course it fails to advocate - which itself may have become a vice.
  - fitblipper 5y ago
    Rule of thumb: If something invokes "protect the children" to justify itself or to push it's agenda, it is advocating something. Not only that it is doing so in an underhanded and emotionally targeted way. I'm not saying politico is the primary source of advocacy in this situation, but they are at least echoing it and helping frame the debate around that.
    - duduuegeh 5y ago
      Seems like a rule that fails pretty fast if children actually need protecting.
      - dsomers 5y ago
        I’m really shocked at how causally some HN commenter will discount the very real problem of online child pornography. It honestly disgusts me how people will hardly acknowledge it’s a real problem.
    - II2II 5y ago
      The fifth and sixth sentence of the article explicitly states the concern of child protection being used as an underhanded and emotional tactic. While I disagree with invoking child protection as a form of political blackmail, child protection is a legitimate concern. Several populations, of which children are one, are considered vulnerable to exploitation and legislation to reduce exploitation is legitimate. The problem lies with the fragility of our political system. It is so fragile that debating the effectiveness of the legislation can be shut down with a handful of emotionally charged words. It is so fragile that seeking alternatives which don't impact fundamental rights is overlooked in the interests of expediency. Of course, creating such rules of thumb is a symptom of the same disease. It is a tool to discourage debate rather than encourage it.
      - TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
        > fundamental rights Genuine question because I never understand what people mean when they use that phrase: how is a right fundamental? Does the cold universe assign them to us or do a set of people agree such-and-such are fundamental. If the latter, were the same rights fundamental 20,000 years ago? (Because if they are fundamental, they should stretch back to early man… earlier than even 20,000 years ago)
        azernik 5y ago
        We assign those rights as a society and, more relevantly here, as a political system. The people who draft our constitutions and (like for all political norms) those who create our political discourse have more influence in defining them than the general population, but these norms have to be agreed to by a fairly large swathe of society to be effective.
        briefcomment 5y ago
        > fairly large swathe of society I don't think a majority necessarily carries power. The uber rich and intelligence agencies carry far more power than any mass of citizens.
    - permo-w 5y ago
      It sounds like you’ve lifted your ethics from an episode of The Simpsons People should judge things like this based on the content and context of the legislation, not based on a 3 word summary of its justification. There’s your rule of thumb
- thibautg 5y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_of_the_children https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_of_the_children
bitdivision 5y ago
I have not been able to find anything about final legislation either, though I did find some references [0] to the chat control legislation from June: [1]. I haven't read through it all, but the notable paragraph seemed to be: This Regulation therefore provides for a temporary derogation from Article 5(1) and Article 6 of Directive 2002/58/EC, which protect the confidentiality of communications and traffic data. 'derogation' being a partial repeal of a law. [0]:https://www.computerweekly.com/opinion/European-chat-control-child-safety-plans-threaten-end-to-end-encryption https://www.computerweekly.com/opinion/European-chat-control... [1]: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/docs_autres_institutions/commission_europeenne/com/2020/0568/COM_COM(2020)0568_EN.pdf https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/docs_autres_instituti... Edit: It does seem that the intention here was to allow tech companies that were previously scanning for child abuse to continue to do so after December 2020, see politico.eu article
- shoeffner 5y ago
  In [1], pages 10 and 11 are the actual directive, the rest is the reasoning. And, although I don't know the previous directives and regulations, it reads as if this is essentially an extension of an exception to the ePrivacy directive for another five years. Birgit Sippel says in her statement to the president of the parliament [2]: > Dieses Gesetz ist eine Übergangslösung für drei Jahre. Die Kommission hatte versprochen, noch vor der Sommerpause einen neuen, dauerhaften Rahmen für die Aufdeckung von Kindesmissbrauch vorzuschlagen. Jetzt dauert es noch bis September oder Oktober. Dafür erwarte ich einen deutlich verbesserten Vorschlag. Die langfristige Lösung muss sich mindestens an den Datenschutzgarantien der temporären Lösung orientieren. Sie muss zwingend Lösungen für das gezieltere Scannen privater Kommunikation finden, sonst wird sie vor nationalen und europäischen Gerichten kaum Bestand haben. Translated (by myself): > This law is a short term solution for three years. The commission promised a permanent solution to combat child abuse before the summer break. Now, this will take until September or October. Thus, I await a much better proposal. The long term solution must have at least the same guarantees for data protection as the short term solution. It [the long term solution] must have solutions for purposeful/targeted ("gezielt") scanning of private communication, otherwise it will not hold up in front of national or European courts. So maybe things do not change that much right now. But back to [1], I am especially curious about article 3(e): > the provider annually publishes a report on its related processing, including on the type and volumes of data processed, number of cases identified, measures applied to select and improve key indicators, numbers and ratios of errors (false positives) of the different technologies deployed, measures applied to limit the error rate and the error rate achieved, the retention policy and the data protection safeguards applied Do you know if and where such statistics are published? (today?) [2]: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/CRE-9-2021-07-05-INT-1-066-0000_DE.html https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/CRE-9-2021-07-...
IncRnd 5y ago
What could possibly go wrong with this legislation?
peterfield 5y ago
Yep this https://www.patrick-breyer.de https://www.patrick-breyer.de website is the worst example of self-referencing I have ever seen :(
AnssiH 5y ago
The legislation: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/TA-9-2021-0319_EN.html https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/TA-9-2021-0319... Press release: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20210701IPR07503/parliament-adopts-temporary-rules-to-detect-child-sexual-abuse-online https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20210701IP... Summary from the above link: > Service providers can continue applying voluntary measures to detect, remove and report child sexual abuse content > National data protection authorities will have stronger oversight of the technologies used > Temporary solution for maximum three years According to the text of legislation, looks like this kind of scanning was allowed until Dec 21st 2020 when it become affected by a stricter privacy directive, and this reallows such scanning.

by edrxty 5y ago

Are there any primary sources for this? I'm having trouble finding anything talking about any final legislative action involving chat control/ePrivacy etc. that isn't this random pirate party blog.

em3rgent0rdr 5y ago

https://www.politico.eu/article/european-parliament-platforms-child-sexual-abuse-reporting-law/ https://www.politico.eu/article/european-parliament-platform...

scandox 5y ago
This is a much better source of information than the headline link. It describes how this came about, what its limitations are and just gives a whole lot more context. Of course it fails to advocate - which itself may have become a vice.
- fitblipper 5y ago
  Rule of thumb: If something invokes "protect the children" to justify itself or to push it's agenda, it is advocating something. Not only that it is doing so in an underhanded and emotionally targeted way. I'm not saying politico is the primary source of advocacy in this situation, but they are at least echoing it and helping frame the debate around that.
  - duduuegeh 5y ago
    Seems like a rule that fails pretty fast if children actually need protecting.
    - dsomers 5y ago
      I’m really shocked at how causally some HN commenter will discount the very real problem of online child pornography. It honestly disgusts me how people will hardly acknowledge it’s a real problem.
  - II2II 5y ago
    The fifth and sixth sentence of the article explicitly states the concern of child protection being used as an underhanded and emotional tactic. While I disagree with invoking child protection as a form of political blackmail, child protection is a legitimate concern. Several populations, of which children are one, are considered vulnerable to exploitation and legislation to reduce exploitation is legitimate. The problem lies with the fragility of our political system. It is so fragile that debating the effectiveness of the legislation can be shut down with a handful of emotionally charged words. It is so fragile that seeking alternatives which don't impact fundamental rights is overlooked in the interests of expediency. Of course, creating such rules of thumb is a symptom of the same disease. It is a tool to discourage debate rather than encourage it.
    - TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
      > fundamental rights Genuine question because I never understand what people mean when they use that phrase: how is a right fundamental? Does the cold universe assign them to us or do a set of people agree such-and-such are fundamental. If the latter, were the same rights fundamental 20,000 years ago? (Because if they are fundamental, they should stretch back to early man… earlier than even 20,000 years ago)
      - azernik 5y ago
        We assign those rights as a society and, more relevantly here, as a political system. The people who draft our constitutions and (like for all political norms) those who create our political discourse have more influence in defining them than the general population, but these norms have to be agreed to by a fairly large swathe of society to be effective.
        briefcomment 5y ago
        > fairly large swathe of society I don't think a majority necessarily carries power. The uber rich and intelligence agencies carry far more power than any mass of citizens.
  - permo-w 5y ago
    It sounds like you’ve lifted your ethics from an episode of The Simpsons People should judge things like this based on the content and context of the legislation, not based on a 3 word summary of its justification. There’s your rule of thumb
thibautg 5y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_of_the_children https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_of_the_children

bitdivision 5y ago

I have not been able to find anything about final legislation either, though I did find some references [0] to the chat control legislation from June: [1]. I haven't read through it all, but the notable paragraph seemed to be: This Regulation therefore provides for a temporary derogation from Article 5(1) and Article 6 of Directive 2002/58/EC, which protect the confidentiality of communications and traffic data. 'derogation' being a partial repeal of a law. [0]:https://www.computerweekly.com/opinion/European-chat-control-child-safety-plans-threaten-end-to-end-encryption https://www.computerweekly.com/opinion/European-chat-control... [1]: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/docs_autres_institutions/commission_europeenne/com/2020/0568/COM_COM(2020)0568_EN.pdf https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/docs_autres_instituti... Edit: It does seem that the intention here was to allow tech companies that were previously scanning for child abuse to continue to do so after December 2020, see politico.eu article

shoeffner 5y ago
In [1], pages 10 and 11 are the actual directive, the rest is the reasoning. And, although I don't know the previous directives and regulations, it reads as if this is essentially an extension of an exception to the ePrivacy directive for another five years. Birgit Sippel says in her statement to the president of the parliament [2]: > Dieses Gesetz ist eine Übergangslösung für drei Jahre. Die Kommission hatte versprochen, noch vor der Sommerpause einen neuen, dauerhaften Rahmen für die Aufdeckung von Kindesmissbrauch vorzuschlagen. Jetzt dauert es noch bis September oder Oktober. Dafür erwarte ich einen deutlich verbesserten Vorschlag. Die langfristige Lösung muss sich mindestens an den Datenschutzgarantien der temporären Lösung orientieren. Sie muss zwingend Lösungen für das gezieltere Scannen privater Kommunikation finden, sonst wird sie vor nationalen und europäischen Gerichten kaum Bestand haben. Translated (by myself): > This law is a short term solution for three years. The commission promised a permanent solution to combat child abuse before the summer break. Now, this will take until September or October. Thus, I await a much better proposal. The long term solution must have at least the same guarantees for data protection as the short term solution. It [the long term solution] must have solutions for purposeful/targeted ("gezielt") scanning of private communication, otherwise it will not hold up in front of national or European courts. So maybe things do not change that much right now. But back to [1], I am especially curious about article 3(e): > the provider annually publishes a report on its related processing, including on the type and volumes of data processed, number of cases identified, measures applied to select and improve key indicators, numbers and ratios of errors (false positives) of the different technologies deployed, measures applied to limit the error rate and the error rate achieved, the retention policy and the data protection safeguards applied Do you know if and where such statistics are published? (today?) [2]: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/CRE-9-2021-07-05-INT-1-066-0000_DE.html https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/CRE-9-2021-07-...

IncRnd 5y ago

What could possibly go wrong with this legislation?

peterfield 5y ago

Yep this https://www.patrick-breyer.de https://www.patrick-breyer.de website is the worst example of self-referencing I have ever seen :(

AnssiH 5y ago

The legislation: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/TA-9-2021-0319_EN.html https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/TA-9-2021-0319... Press release: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20210701IPR07503/parliament-adopts-temporary-rules-to-detect-child-sexual-abuse-online https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20210701IP... Summary from the above link: > Service providers can continue applying voluntary measures to detect, remove and report child sexual abuse content > National data protection authorities will have stronger oversight of the technologies used > Temporary solution for maximum three years According to the text of legislation, looks like this kind of scanning was allowed until Dec 21st 2020 when it become affected by a stricter privacy directive, and this reallows such scanning.