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EU Commission refuses to disclose authors behind its mass surveillance proposal
- furkansahin 1y agoAre you surprised with the extreme right being on the rise! No worries, they will loose their power like Geert of Netherlands does nowadays...
- nickslaughter02 1y agoIs Ursula von der Leyen "extreme right"? Because it was her (and her commission) who established the group responsible and it was the commission's decision to not disclose its members.
- holoduke 1y agoUrsula von der Leyen is the example of where things are wrong in the EU. She is powerhungry. Has a history of things close to corruption. And she creates a very toxic environment to work in. Anxiety amongst personnel around her is very common. The balance between serving the people and serving the interest of corporations is very off.
- nickslaughter02 1y agoShe has managed to create an environment where people (me at least) do not want to live and which corporations are eager to leave.
- gizmo 1y agoHer personal politics are not extremist in the conventional sense. She is a center-right technocrat at heart. She believes people like her have to protect Europe against the idiot masses. When she dismantles European civil rights she does so for the "greater good". People can't be trusted to vote in their own best interest, or so the logic goes. She thinks she and people like her protect Europe against the rising populist right. I think she's badly mistaken and that the populist right is fueled by EU arrogance, and the GP probably shares that view.
- anal_reactor 1y ago> People can't be trusted to vote in their own best interest, or so the logic goes. Is this wrong.
- postepowanieadm 1y agoUrsula "I won't show my emails from Pfizer" von der Leyen wold never do such thing.
- pjc50 1y agoYeah, I don't think enough of the centrists consider the question of how intrusive state powers might be used by a far-right government. Despite having several demonstrations at the moment.
- collyw 1y agoThe far left seem to be a far greater danger at present. They are the ones pushing for all the authoritarianism.
- f_devd 1y agoI know a few examples of upcoming far right, who are the upcoming far left?
- collyw 1y ago[flagged]
- archagon 1y agoYou mean the “far left” Labour politicians trying their best to cosplay Tories? Meanwhile, Reform — a populist far-right party — is clobbering everyone in the polls.
- mytailorisrich 1y agoIf Reform is far right then Corbyn's Labour was definitely far left. Certainly it is completely incorrect to label Farage "far right", he is nothing of the sort. Overall the most accurate description for Reform is probably right-wing populism. You can't simply put a label "far right" on anything and everything on the right while, at the same time, claiming that everything on the left is only "mild social democracy" when similar left-wing populism exists if not, indeed, far left.
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- zaruvi 1y ago[flagged]
- tgv 1y agoI don't see the connection. It's true, as others say, that extremist's use of surveillance tool poses the greatest danger, but the desire to monitor the population is present across the political spectrum. Since you mention Wilders: the centrist, and most liberal Dutch party D'66 actually supported a surveillance "drag net" for the Dutch intelligence services.
- pveierland 1y agoAs a data point, the largest political parties in Norway (Arbeiderpartiet / Høyre), are now both seeking to introduce age limits backed by national BankID login systems to access social media, which would be a massive invasion in the right to privacy online. The same parties voted in 2011 to introduce mass data storage, where all international internet traffic can be stored and kept for 6 months by the state. I see no reason to believe that either party would protect the right to private communication or internet use.
- hhjinks 1y ago> international internet traffic Which means all internet traffic that crosses the border at any point. So it practically includes all domestic traffic, too.
- dgb23 1y agoI don't think the extreme right is pushing this. They are typically anti-EU. I speculate that this is a result of centrist/neoliberal establishment wanting to solidify control. The extreme right is typically using failures like this as a political attack vector.
- ant1oz 1y ago[flagged]
- nickslaughter02 1y agooriginal title: The EU Commission refuses to disclose the orchestrators behind its mass surveillance proposal, which would effectively end citizens’ online privacy
- AnimalMuppet 1y agoSee, the thing is, the reason that they want privacy for what they do, we want privacy for the exact same reason.
- Hilift 1y agohttps://www.statewatch.org/news/2024/june/policing-by-design-the-latest-eu-surveillance-plan/ https://www.statewatch.org/news/2024/june/policing-by-design... "The paper calls for “a harmonised EU regime on data retention” that is “technology neutral and future-proof,” covers all types of telecommunications service providers, includes measures ensuring both retention of and access to data, and is “in full compliance with privacy and data protection rules.” "The EU’s previous data retention legislation was struck down by the Court of Justice in 2014, which found that the law allowed for “a wide-ranging and particularly serious interference” with the fundamental rights to privacy and data protection. The court has confirmed this interpretation in several cases about national data retention measures." "the paper calls for retention of data from “service providers of any kind that could provide access to electronic evidence." "agreed upon the need for law enforcement to have access to data en clair"
- amarcheschi 1y agothey're still saying the old thing about accessing encrypted data and protecting privacy while it's obvious that it wouldn't be possible to access encrypted data and for that data to still be "secure" at the same time
- reliabilityguy 1y agoThey can use homomorphic encryption to learn about the data without actually seeing it.
- amarcheschi 1y agoI'm not an expert at all on cryptography so I can't comment on that, however when looking for info about thorn I found a ftm page where a uni researcher acknowledges it's not possible to do it yet. It should be either this https://www.ftm.eu/articles/ashton-kutchers-non-profit-start-up-makes-millions-from-fighting-child-abuse-online https://www.ftm.eu/articles/ashton-kutchers-non-profit-start... or this one, I can't remember at the moment https://www.ftm.eu/articles/ashton-kutcher-s-anti-childabuse-software-below-par https://www.ftm.eu/articles/ashton-kutcher-s-anti-childabuse... Edit "possible" as in very computationally expensive to do it on a mass scale
- HPsquared 1y ago[flagged]
- amarcheschi 1y agoit might be worth reading edri article on it https://edri.org/our-work/high-level-group-going-dark-outcome-a-mission-failure/ https://edri.org/our-work/high-level-group-going-dark-outcom... i've just yesterday uploaded my final essay for a uni course on ethics where i'm debating on chat control and i have to say that being unsatisfied with some commission moves is not enough. there would be a shitton to talk about, but i'll just leave here that: -while chat control was being discussed, europol was already salivating at the thought of expanding the regulation scope to other crime areas (as they said, "all traffic is useful" or something like that)[1] -the european commission bases his thesis on the efficacy on the data provided by thorn, but we don't have any actual information about the trustworthyness of this claims. the european commission refused to comply with a FOIA request and the ombudsman suggested to comply, but still the eu commission refused to protect commercial interest of thorn. eu ombudsman ruled the case as maladministration on behalf of the eu commission but it has no power to do anything else[2]. another foia request filed in a member state revealed some other documents that still do not give any insight to thorn software, so we can't trust it yet -a few europol members moved to thorn, with one violating rules about conflict of interest [3] [1] https://balkaninsight.com/2023/09/29/europol-sought-unlimited-data-access-in-online-child-sexual-abuse-regulation/ https://balkaninsight.com/2023/09/29/europol-sought-unlimite... [2] https://www.ombudsman.europa.eu/en/decision/en/189484 https://www.ombudsman.europa.eu/en/decision/en/189484 [3] https://www.ombudsman.europa.eu/en/decision/en/200017 https://www.ombudsman.europa.eu/en/decision/en/200017
- nickslaughter02 1y agoTo make things worse, Denmark will take hold of the Presidency of the Council of EU from July to December. They are one of the main forces behind Chat Control.
- skrebbel 1y agoGot any source? I thought it was primarily a Swedish commissioner (Ylva Johansson) pushing it. EDIT: I don't mean this as "I don't believe you", I just want to know more.
- _ink_ 1y agoAre authors of proposals usually hidden? If not, why in this one? Where are the conservatives, that always argue that you don't need privacy, when you have nothing to hide?
- nickslaughter02 1y ago> Are authors of proposals usually hidden? No and if they are not mentioned, you can request the participants via an information request. The Commission has failed at both. See my other comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44168505 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44168505
- collyw 1y ago[flagged]
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- mr90210 1y agoI have been thinking the same for months. EU citizens are giving way too much power to those people in Brussels. That institution is getting power hungry.
- natmaka 1y agoVlad was right: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bM2Ql3wOGcU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bM2Ql3wOGcU
- impossiblefork 1y agoThis is certain to be illegal though. The previous data retention directive was found to be incompatible with EU human rights law and was annulled. What is scary is that they're still trying, as if though this would bypass it. It reminds of their repeated adequacy decisions on EU-US data transfers.
- nickslaughter02 1y ago> What is scary is that they're still trying, as if though this would bypass it. This is a game of attrition. They will keep trying until it inevitably passes.
- impossiblefork 1y agoYes, but they won once, and then they lost their victory due to the courts deciding that it was not in accordance with the foundational EU human rights laws.
- ekianjo 1y ago
- motohagiography 1y agohaving seen this issue through the crypto wars and pgp, the patriot act, the FISA scandals, bullrun's various crypto backdoors and rng sabotage, the tls 1.3 foward secrecy controversies, twitter files, then vax passports and digital identity- these people just never go away, and there's always a new generation to replace them. it seems established now that people in tech need to be vigilant because that game is never not on.
- MangoToupe 1y agoNow that we have institutions devoted to spying on people and justifying it, there's no way this is going away through the normal mechanisms of government. You need to kill these things in their infancy or people accept them as normal. Folks working at the institution are invested in preserving it, and those jockeying to join the institution are incentivized to be more zealously bought in to the value of spying in the first place.
- transcriptase 1y agoThere’s never a shortage of people who lacked a strong father figure and latch on to government authority to meet that psychological need.
- weberer 1y agoMost of this stuff is done in secret without the consent of the public. Look at PRISM for example. Nobody voted for that, and it was a huge scandal when its existence was leaked.
- account42 1y agoIs something really a big scandal when no heads roll (metaphorically at least)?
- bigyabai 1y agoHonestly, that's a prejudiced perspective and not even close to the reason surveillance persists anyways. Go to your local Verizon store and try to find a product free from government surveillance. Anything that is more electronically complex than a phone charger will probably be spying on you. Portable hotspot? Backdoored. Modern tablet or phone? Backdoored too. WWAN laptop you installed Linux on? They collect your browsing data at the tower. If Americans had en-masse daddy issues that encouraged surveillance then sufficient awareness could ostensibly "fix" the issue of privacy. But we can't fix it; the preeminent issue is that every business you spend your money on is unwilling to resist government coercion.
- otikik 1y agoWow the irony is palpable
- perihelions 1y agoIt's surreal, and dismaying, to contrast this surveillance push with recent Western reporting about North Korea digital surveillance[0,1]. Dismaying, because it shows (IMO) how our societal dialogues are helplessly stuck in a rut of doublethink—using one set of language to describe what the DPRK is doing, and entirely different language for the things the EU bureaucracy is doing, though they're the same things. There's no daylight between North Korea's "dystopian reality" [sic] of capturing random screenshots of user devices, and the EU's mandatory data retention concept. [0] https://www.techspot.com/news/108156-north-korean-smartphone-secretly-takes-screenshot-every-5.html https://www.techspot.com/news/108156-north-korean-smartphone... ("In North Korea, your phone secretly takes screenshots every 5 minutes for government surveillance") [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/cewd82p09l0o https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/cewd82p09l0o ("Inside a phone smuggled out of North Korea")
- nickslaughter02 1y ago> In North Korea, your phone secretly takes screenshots every 5 minutes for government surveillance Context: Under the EU's Chat Control proposal, your private messages (Signal, WhatsApp etc) will be scanned by an on-device AI agent. The current debate is around scanning images and videos but the original proposals called for analyzing all text too (I wish I was joking).
- amarcheschi 1y agoAs far as I know, the latest draft of chat control doesn't include mandatory scanning anymore. I might as well be wrong though
- nickslaughter02 1y agoIt doesn't under the Polish presidency. Denmark is taking the lead from July and plans to push for the most extreme version (all scanning mandatory). https://digitalcourage.social/@echo_pbreyer/114596587390684173 https://digitalcourage.social/@echo_pbreyer/1145965873906841... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44168752 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44168752
- Havoc 1y agoIs there any part of the world that isn't pushing orwellian stuff?
- falcor84 1y agoYou reminded me of "Consciousness Explained" [0], where Dennett makes a metaphorical distinction between the Orwellian and Stalinesque approaches, such that in the former, "wrong things" are allowed to happen and are then reconciled by changing history, while in the latter, everything is enforced and handled on the spot, before wrong information ever reaches the news [1]. I am concerned that we're headed into both dystopias at the same time, with some countries going further into the Stalinesque approach. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness_Explained https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness_Explained [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_drafts_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_drafts_model
- 1oooqooq 1y agothat's the right question to be asked. extreme capital concentration breeds this, and we had it happen everywhere.
- dgb23 1y agoMore generally it's concentration of power. It's far more difficult to do these kinds of things when people have the direct vote.
- 1oooqooq 1y agoyet the country ahead on this is the bastion of democracy (without having direct vote, but still)
- spacebanana7 1y agoThe governments of North Korea, China, the EU and Australia are all trying to get as much surveillance as they can get away with, despite having radically different economic systems. I suspect there’s a universal desire for governments to want to spy on the people they govern.
- Zealotux 1y agoRemember: "the EU is founded on core values including respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law, and respect for human rights." No doubt we'll keep on giving lessons about these to non-EU countries anyway.
- amarcheschi 1y agoThe European court of justice could still deem such practice to be unlawful
- nickslaughter02 1y agoI am positive they will start attacking it on this front too. Changing the rules is just a vote away.
- hcfman 1y agoSo long as you were quick enough to file within three months of exhausting all your local options. Too late? Oh, too bad.
- amarcheschi 1y agoWell, I'm not saying that I want to see if it eventually gets there, I can only hope that it is not necessary to get there
- libertine 1y agoOut of curiosity, despite its flaws and setbacks, what countries or organizations are in a better position to lecture others on those matters? Russia? China? Iran?
- seydor 1y agoThe US. The EU is a bureaucratic institution, not a democratic one, and arguably doesn't have more legitimacy than its current bureaucrats at any time. At this time there are 0 people worth talking about in the Commission or the council. Despite the flaws of its president, the US has democratic checks and balances
- sbszllr 1y agoUsual reminder -- if you're an EU citizen, call up your representative.
- ekianjo 1y agoRepresentatives don't care as much as you'd like them to, unfortunately.
- cbeach 1y agoI tried that with my MEPs on the Copyright Directive. Nearly all of them replied with parrotted talking points from the EU Commission, as opposed to any kind of understanding of the issues I raised. At the end of the day, EU Parliament representation is dilute and indirect. Unlike the democratic systems of most nations, elected EU parliamentarians cannot originate any new law. Only appointed (unelected) individuals within the EU Commission/Council can do so, behind closed doors if it suits them. MEPs are on a lucrative gravy train and they generally don't want to rock the boat. If the Commission doesn't get a "yes" from Parliament, it simply makes superficial amendments and retries Parliament until the "yes" is received. With the Copyright Directive, after a "no" vote in Parliament in 2018, the Commission literally put the same contentious articles (11 and 13) back in again for the second vote - this time under different article numbers (15 and 17), so all the public activism and criticism linked to the original article numbers would be orphaned. MEPs voted "yes" the second time, like the good, obedient MEPs they are.
- sbszllr 1y agoAnecdata but I also had good experiences reaching out to MEPs, so not all is lost. At its core, the core issue seems to be the lack of accountability between the MEP, and people that voted them in. Few people vote in the EU elections, and even fewer follow up on what happens there. Chicken and egg problem but if you want your MEP not to be just "a good obedient MEP they are", the electorate needs to ask more of them.
- cbeach 1y agoSo we expect our public to care, and to engage with a Parliament in a foreign country, where elected representatives wield barely any power and cannot originate law? Prior to Brexit, the UK had less than 10% of a stake in the European Parliament, so our 73 representatives had little effect on the overall system. I didn't know a single person who could name their MEP. Direct democracy at the national level is simply more engaging and relatable. It matters that the electorate, and their representatives are accountable for the outcomes of their decisions.
- ekianjo 1y agoSome people get privacy at least!
- belter 1y agoI am all for the EU Commission mass surveillance proposals. Maybe then they will be able to find von der Leyen messages... "EU's von der Leyen can't find texts with Pfizer chief on vaccine deal" - https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/eus-von-der-leyen-cant-find-texts-with-pfizer-chief-vaccine-deal-letter-2022-06-29/ https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/eus-von-der-leyen-cant-...
- sensanaty 1y agoI'd recommend any EU citizen (and non-citizen!) to give their feedback against this disgusting proposal here: https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-say/initiatives/14680-Impact-assessment-on-retention-of-data-by-service-providers-for-criminal-proceedings-_enaddFeedback_en?p_id=57023308 https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-sa...
- frm88 1y agoThank you for that link. I just left my statement there.
- DoingIsLearning 1y agoIs there any precedent in prior government bodies or other countries where you have a number of attempts or a moratory period to propose embodiments of the same law? As in if you propose a law in a general area and gets shot down you cannot simply rewrite it slightly and once again pitch through attrition. Something like 4 strikes and you can never bring it back to vote or for every proposal you lose a vote you cannot repackage the same core for the next 10 years.
- kmlx 1y agohow would those proposals work with these other initiatives that will go live in 2026? EU Digital Identity Wallet: https://ec.europa.eu/digital-building-blocks/sites/display/EUDIGITALIDENTITYWALLET/EU+Digital+Identity+Wallet+Home https://ec.europa.eu/digital-building-blocks/sites/display/E... EU Age Verification: https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/eu-age-verification https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/eu-age-ver...
- nickslaughter02 1y agoThey will complete each other. Large websites and apps will be forced to implement age verification and thus your online identity will be tied to your real identity. No privacy from government spying and the end of anonymous accounts.
- m00dy 1y agowhat an irony here :)
- seaourfreed 1y agoWe need to build an encrypted internet to keep people secure. * Secure version of Linux that keeps the end OS secure * VPN companies tend to be owned by country intel services. Create a TOR equivalent for internet traffic
- jrexilius 1y agoThe main flaw is the enforced duopoly of iOS/Android for everyones favorite personal surveillance assistant. The secondary flaw is centralized control over transport layer access (internet really isn't decentralized anymore). And the last flaw is proprietary hadrware that controls the OS and transport layer access.
- nickslaughter02 1y agoA technology based solution will only get you so far. You cannot win against people who control the law. What will you do when they decide to outlaw all VPN-like technology?
- billy99k 1y ago...so I guess Brexit was a good idea after all.
- iamtheworstdev 1y agoare we pretending the UK isn't a pro surveillance state?
- nickslaughter02 1y agoIn a way. The UK has long waged war against encryption, mandating backdoors and weaking security of people. There's no doubt they would salivating over these proposals and voted for them. "45 organizations and cybersecurity experts sign open letter expressing concerns with UK’s Online Safety Bill" https://www.globalencryption.org/2022/04/45-organizations-and-cybersecurity-experts-sign-open-letter-expressing-concerns-with-uks-online-safety-bill/ https://www.globalencryption.org/2022/04/45-organizations-an... "UK Government Denies U-Turn on Plan to Scan Encrypted Messages" https://www.macrumors.com/2023/09/07/uk-government-plan-scan-encrypted-messages/ https://www.macrumors.com/2023/09/07/uk-government-plan-scan... "UK’s secret Apple iCloud backdoor order is a global emergency, say critics" https://techcrunch.com/2025/02/10/uks-secret-apple-icloud-backdoor-order-is-a-global-emergency-say-critics/ https://techcrunch.com/2025/02/10/uks-secret-apple-icloud-ba...
- jeroenhd 1y agoThe UK has implemented measures much more draconian than what this working group is even considering at the moment. Perhaps it was a good idea, seeing as the UK was often a major supporter of plans like these, and that they are now no longer a threat to EU citizens, but Brexit certainly won't protect you if you're a UK citizen.
- hn_throw2025 1y agoThe difference being that we can elect new governments every 5 years with the power to repeal laws, if something is sufficiently unpalatable to the population. Our rulemakers are not immune to voter displeasure. Try that with the Commission/Council steamroller. You get what they want, forever.
- rdm_blackhole 1y agoAnd then Europe/the EU commission has the gall to give lessons of democracy to other countries? What a joke!
- rdm_blackhole 1y agoMy biggest pet peeve in this whole thing is really the lack of foresight of these governments that want to create this dystopian future. Think about it for a second, they would be creating a massive machinery intended to spy on all their citizens for dubious reasons, not thinking that if one day a madman/madwoman gets in power, they would have provided them with a tool that would enable this person to track and hunt down all potential political opponents. By building this, they are effectively facilitating future political purges. Hitler and Stalin would never have dreamed to have such surveillance capabilities.
- kaoD 1y agoThey know. It's just their smugness telling them they will always be in power since they're the good guys and good guys prevail.
- aaronbaugher 1y agoThey think they're far too clever to let that ever happen, so the tyranny (not that they'd call it that) of technocratic managerialism that they're pushing will never let other tyrants rise again. They also tend to buy into an "end of history" thinking that says the Smart People have figured out how to solve all the problems, so the only challenge is getting the dumb citizens to go along with it, or keeping them sated and sedated until it's too late for them to get in the way.
- cbeach 1y agoBrilliantly worded comment. I'm going to steal those phrases
- fuzzfactor 1y agoSometimes what passes for "leadership" is "kind of" disappointing. And when too many blind followers arise it can really get out of hand. Exponential disappointment can be one ofthe most ominous things . . .
- gitaarik 1y agoWell, I think they're implementing it because they are the mad men!
- TacticalCoder 1y ago[dead]
- elric 1y agoThe MEPs should put as much pressure as possible on them until the Commission stops this foolishness, abandons this proposal, and starts acting transparently. If they don't, the Commission should step down, as their Orwellian power grabby bullshit is not in the interest of their supposed constituents.
- ahartmetz 1y agoSecret democracy, eh? Against the people, distrusting the people, and fuck the people. I suspect von der Leyen. She has pushed similar crap in Germany, and the temerity of not telling who proposed it is completely in character for her. She has told straight lies about her intentions before.
- hulitu 1y ago> EU Commission refuses to disclose authors behind its mass surveillance proposal They (the authors) pay well. Much better than some Huawei lobbysts or defence lobbysts. /s
- miohtama 1y agoA state where a police makes the laws is called a police state. What is then called a state where a secret police makes the laws?
- shitlibertine 1y ago[dead]