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It'll be interesting to see what they can cook up at home. Chat Control was pushed in large part by Denmark, and Minister of Justice Peter Hummelgaard is on rec

It'll be interesting to see what they can cook up at home. Chat Control was pushed in large part by Denmark, and Minister of Justice Peter Hummelgaard is on record saying some pretty disturbing things regarding the right to privacy online.[1] Now for this, they don't need the entire EU to go along, and any laws already on the books might prove ineffective to protect against means that end up achieving similar goals to Chat Control. Denmark's constitution does have a privacy paragraph, but it explicitly mentions telephone and telegraph, as well as letters.[2] Turns out online messaging doesn't count. It'd be a funny one to get to whatever court, because hopefully someone there will have a brain and use it, but it wouldn't be the first time someone didn't. [1] https://boingboing.net/2025/09/15/danish-justice-minister-we-must-break-perception-of-right-to-private-messaging.html https://boingboing.net/2025/09/15/danish-justice-minister-we... [2] https://www.grundloven.dk/ https://www.grundloven.dk/

Svip 1y ago
Whether internet is covered by § 72 seems undetermined; as far as I can tell the Supreme Court hasn't made a decision on it; but considering that it considered fake SMS train tickets to be document fraud, even though the law text never explicitly mentions text messages: it seems clear that internet communication ought to be covered, if challenged. Regardless, this wouldn't run afoul of this. This is similar to restricting who can buy alcohol, based purely on age; the identification process is just digital. MitID - the Danish digital identification infrastructure - allows an service to request specific details about another purpose; such as their age or just a boolean value whether they are old enough. Essentially: the service can ask "is this user 18 or older?" and the ID service can respond yes or no, without providing any other PII. That's the theory at least; nothing about snooping private communication, but rather forcing the "bouncer" to actually check IDs.
- tokai 1y ago
  >considering that it considered fake SMS train tickets to be document fraud, even though the law text never explicitly mentions text messages That has nothing to do with the medium of the ticket and is all about knowingly presenting a fake ticket. The ticket is a document proving your payment for travel. They could be lumps of dirt and it would still be document fraud to present a fake hand of dirt.
  - Svip 1y ago
    Except the Supreme Court deemed the case to be of a principal nature, and granted relieve (i.e. no cost to either party), since it was disputed whether a fake SMS train ticket counted as document fraud.
- Telaneo 1y ago
  > Regardless, this wouldn't run afoul of this. This is similar to restricting who can buy alcohol, based purely on age; the identification process is just digital. MitID - the Danish digital identification infrastructure - allows an service to request specific details about another purpose; such as their age or just a boolean value whether they are old enough. Essentially: the service can ask "is this user 18 or older?" and the ID service can respond yes or no, without providing any other PII. > That's the theory at least; nothing about snooping private communication, but rather forcing the "bouncing" to actually check IDs. Hopefully the theory will reflect the real world. The 'return bool' to 'isUser15+()' is probably the best we can hope for, and should prevent the obvious problems, but there can always be more shady dealings on the backend (as if there aren't enough of those already).
  - jlouis 1y ago
    Given the track record of digitalization in Denmark, you can be rest assured this will be implemented in the worst possible way. This is Denmark. The country who reads the EU legislation requesting the construction of a CA to avoid centralizing the system and then legally bends the rules of EU and decides it's far better to create a centralized solution. I.e., the intent is a public key cryptosystem with three bodies, the state being the CA. But no, they should hold both the CA and the Key in escrow. Oh, and then decides that the secret should be a pin such that law enforcement can break it in 10 milliseconds. I think internet verification is at least 10 years too late. Better late than never. I just lament the fact we are going to get a bad solution to the problem.
delusional 1y ago
> Denmark's constitution does have a privacy paragraph, but it explicitly mentions telephone and telegraph That's very much not how danish law works. The specific paragraph says "hvor ingen lov hjemler en særegen undtaglse, alene ske efter en retskendelse." translated as "where no other law grants a special exemption, only happen with a warrant". That is, you can open peoples private mail and enter their private residence, but you have to ask a judge first.
- Telaneo 1y ago
  And yet they wanted to push a proposal where the government would have free access to all digital communication, no judge required. So if it happens through a telephone conversation, you need a judge, while with a digital message, you wouldn't have, since the government would have already collected that information through Chat Control.
  - delusional 1y ago
    I don't know where you get your information, but that was not in the chat control proposal I read.
    - Telaneo 1y ago
      Patrick Breyer has some good thoughts on this.[1] The relevant points I believe to be: > All citizens are placed under suspicion, without cause, of possibly having committed a crime. Text and photo filters monitor all messages, without exception. No judge is required to order to such monitoring – contrary to the analog world which guarantees the privacy of correspondence and the confidentiality of written communications. And: > The confidentiality of private electronic correspondence is being sacrificed. Users of messenger, chat and e-mail services risk having their private messages read and analyzed. Sensitive photos and text content could be forwarded to unknown entities worldwide and can fall into the wrong hands. [1] https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/posts/chat-control/ https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/posts/chat-control/
      - 1y ago
martin-t 1y ago
> Denmark's constitution does have a privacy paragraph, but it explicitly mentions telephone and telegraph, as well as letters And this is why laws should always include their justification. The intent was clearly to protect people - to make sure the balance of power does not fall too much in the government's favor that it can silence dissent before it gets organized enough to remove the government (whether legally or illegally does not matter), even if that meant some crimes go unpunished. These rules were created because most current democratic governments were created by people overthrowing previous dictatorships (whether a dictator calls himself king, president or general secretary does not matter) and they knew very well that even the government they create might need to be overthrown in the future. Now the governments are intentionally sidestepping these rules because: - Every organization's primary goal is its own continued existence. - Every organization's secondary goal is the protection of its members. - Any officially stated goals are tertiary.

Svip 1y ago

Whether internet is covered by § 72 seems undetermined; as far as I can tell the Supreme Court hasn't made a decision on it; but considering that it considered fake SMS train tickets to be document fraud, even though the law text never explicitly mentions text messages: it seems clear that internet communication ought to be covered, if challenged. Regardless, this wouldn't run afoul of this. This is similar to restricting who can buy alcohol, based purely on age; the identification process is just digital. MitID - the Danish digital identification infrastructure - allows an service to request specific details about another purpose; such as their age or just a boolean value whether they are old enough. Essentially: the service can ask "is this user 18 or older?" and the ID service can respond yes or no, without providing any other PII. That's the theory at least; nothing about snooping private communication, but rather forcing the "bouncer" to actually check IDs.

tokai 1y ago
>considering that it considered fake SMS train tickets to be document fraud, even though the law text never explicitly mentions text messages That has nothing to do with the medium of the ticket and is all about knowingly presenting a fake ticket. The ticket is a document proving your payment for travel. They could be lumps of dirt and it would still be document fraud to present a fake hand of dirt.
- Svip 1y ago
  Except the Supreme Court deemed the case to be of a principal nature, and granted relieve (i.e. no cost to either party), since it was disputed whether a fake SMS train ticket counted as document fraud.
Telaneo 1y ago
> Regardless, this wouldn't run afoul of this. This is similar to restricting who can buy alcohol, based purely on age; the identification process is just digital. MitID - the Danish digital identification infrastructure - allows an service to request specific details about another purpose; such as their age or just a boolean value whether they are old enough. Essentially: the service can ask "is this user 18 or older?" and the ID service can respond yes or no, without providing any other PII. > That's the theory at least; nothing about snooping private communication, but rather forcing the "bouncing" to actually check IDs. Hopefully the theory will reflect the real world. The 'return bool' to 'isUser15+()' is probably the best we can hope for, and should prevent the obvious problems, but there can always be more shady dealings on the backend (as if there aren't enough of those already).
- jlouis 1y ago
  Given the track record of digitalization in Denmark, you can be rest assured this will be implemented in the worst possible way. This is Denmark. The country who reads the EU legislation requesting the construction of a CA to avoid centralizing the system and then legally bends the rules of EU and decides it's far better to create a centralized solution. I.e., the intent is a public key cryptosystem with three bodies, the state being the CA. But no, they should hold both the CA and the Key in escrow. Oh, and then decides that the secret should be a pin such that law enforcement can break it in 10 milliseconds. I think internet verification is at least 10 years too late. Better late than never. I just lament the fact we are going to get a bad solution to the problem.

delusional 1y ago

> Denmark's constitution does have a privacy paragraph, but it explicitly mentions telephone and telegraph That's very much not how danish law works. The specific paragraph says "hvor ingen lov hjemler en særegen undtaglse, alene ske efter en retskendelse." translated as "where no other law grants a special exemption, only happen with a warrant". That is, you can open peoples private mail and enter their private residence, but you have to ask a judge first.

Telaneo 1y ago
And yet they wanted to push a proposal where the government would have free access to all digital communication, no judge required. So if it happens through a telephone conversation, you need a judge, while with a digital message, you wouldn't have, since the government would have already collected that information through Chat Control.
- delusional 1y ago
  I don't know where you get your information, but that was not in the chat control proposal I read.
  - Telaneo 1y ago
    Patrick Breyer has some good thoughts on this.[1] The relevant points I believe to be: > All citizens are placed under suspicion, without cause, of possibly having committed a crime. Text and photo filters monitor all messages, without exception. No judge is required to order to such monitoring – contrary to the analog world which guarantees the privacy of correspondence and the confidentiality of written communications. And: > The confidentiality of private electronic correspondence is being sacrificed. Users of messenger, chat and e-mail services risk having their private messages read and analyzed. Sensitive photos and text content could be forwarded to unknown entities worldwide and can fall into the wrong hands. [1] https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/posts/chat-control/ https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/posts/chat-control/
    - 1y ago

martin-t 1y ago

> Denmark's constitution does have a privacy paragraph, but it explicitly mentions telephone and telegraph, as well as letters And this is why laws should always include their justification. The intent was clearly to protect people - to make sure the balance of power does not fall too much in the government's favor that it can silence dissent before it gets organized enough to remove the government (whether legally or illegally does not matter), even if that meant some crimes go unpunished. These rules were created because most current democratic governments were created by people overthrowing previous dictatorships (whether a dictator calls himself king, president or general secretary does not matter) and they knew very well that even the government they create might need to be overthrown in the future. Now the governments are intentionally sidestepping these rules because: - Every organization's primary goal is its own continued existence. - Every organization's secondary goal is the protection of its members. - Any officially stated goals are tertiary.