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Europe's New War on Privacy

• wg0 10mo ago
  These carrier bureaucrates of EU will split the EU apart with their needless over legislation where member state's fascist far left and far right elements would want to be done with the union.
  • undeveloper 10mo ago
    fascism, a notably far left movement. why the nazis first went for communists, trade unionists, and social democrats.
    • deleted 10mo ago
      [deleted]
• j00m 10mo ago
  > We value your privacy > UnHerd and our 5403 technology partners ask you to consent to the use of cookies to store/access and process personal data on your device. Oh, okay.
  • dgan 10mo ago
    "We value your privacy" means they ve put a pricetag on it
  • port11 10mo ago
    ‘We value your privacy’ has to be one of most doublespeaky phrases in modern world.
    • tempodox 10mo ago
      Not if you realize the denomination of the value is Dollars.
• hollow-moe 10mo ago
  They will literally use the christmas holidays to pass this while people are spending time with their families and won't notice it.
  • baiac 10mo ago
    Even if they did, what are they going to do about it?
    • hollow-moe 10mo ago
      True, it's sad to see activists needs to be on duty 24/7/365 and yet it's useless if they can't get normal people to follow them and spam the inbox of every single EU employee just to delay more whatever chains they're trying to pass.
      • deleted 10mo ago
        [deleted]
      • eth0up 10mo ago
        24/7/365 That's the equation for Liberty In Extremis. Real Liberty requires time dilation, eternal vigilance, adequate provigil, and plasma rifles.
      • qcnguy 10mo ago
        Spamming EU employees (the correct term to use) is useless not because it requires 24/7 attention but because there is no reason for any EU employee to care. The EU is constitutionally designed to eliminate democratic mechanisms. And as we saw with Brexit, citizens are kept in line by massive threats of punishment if they leave (although in the case of the UK the EU chickened out and showed itself to be a paper tiger).
  • AstralStorm 10mo ago
    It will be challenged in the Tribunal if it passes, and will lose as it is incompatible with baseline EU laws. Specifically, the charter: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/treaty/char_2012/oj/eng https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/treaty/char_2012/oj/eng Article 8 point 2. They're missing the provisions of data retrieval. If available, that would immediately take down the whole monitoring system as a full message history request would have to be available since they don't know which data is private or personally identifying. Additionally, this falls under GDPR legitimate concern category so must be possible to reject by the user. Otherwise it's an involuntary measure making the law contradictory. With this in mind, it's toothless if corrected.
• Aerroon 10mo ago
  I can't read the full article, but I would like to remind everyone that this is not the first time the EU has done something like this. In 2006 the EU passed the Data Retention Directive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Retention_Directive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Retention_Directive >According to the Data Retention Directive, EU member states had to store information on all citizens' telecommunications data (phone and internet connections) for a minimum of six months and at most twenty-four months, to be delivered on demand to police authorities. This was actually law for 8 years until the Court of Justice of the EU found it to be violating fundamental rights and was declared invalid.
  • tbrownaw 10mo ago
    > can't read the full article Reader mode seems to work.
  • 8fingerlouie 10mo ago
    It's still a law in Denmark, despite being rendered illegal in the EU, and likewise in national courts. It was last used to convict a murderer of the murder of Emilie Meng (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Emilie_Meng https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Emilie_Meng). At the time, he had kidnapped a 13 year old girl (IIRC), that he had sexually assaulted for 24+ hours, and various dashcam recordings were used to piece together what had happened. He was also convicted of attempted kidnapping of a 15 year old girl from a school. They found the 13 year old in his home, so not much doubt about that, but the other two cases were partially proven with phone metadata logging, proving he had been in the area at the time. In the light of that, it's hard to disagree 100% that it's a "bad idea". It's a question of balance I guess, and the mass surveillance proposed in ChatControl is way out of balance. Not only does it scan in the background, it also scans for things that are unknown to you, and alerts authorities without alerting you. That's the perfect tool for facist regimes to get rid of political dissents.
    • stavros 10mo ago
      It's always a tradeoff. Nothing is ever going to have zero benefit, the problem is that these laws use the marginal benefit as an excuse to institute something that actually has massive downsides.
• saltysalt 10mo ago
  We need better leaders. Regards, a disappointed EU citizen.
  • lifestyleguru 10mo ago
    [flagged]
    • marcyb5st 10mo ago
      I agree, a citizen of yet another EU country
    • TeMPOraL 10mo ago
      The good ol' "we don't like the EU, so we'll sink ourselves and everyone else trying to sabotage it, just to prove everyone that EU was a bad idea".
    • throw-the-towel 10mo ago
      As a non-European who sometimes reads EU news, I think this is spot on. If you're a politician in Europe, the real goal is a position in your national government or parliament; the EU institutions are nothing more than a consolation prize, and so they're full of marginal opinions, also-ran politicians, disgraced former ministers, etc.
    • deleted 10mo ago
      [deleted]
    • jeltz 10mo ago
      It is that scum which has so far stopped these proposals. The Parliament does not like surveillance while the Council does.
    • pndy 10mo ago
      Here, being MEP is perceived as being on a lucrative political exile - those who are there cannot do damage to local politics. And frankly, it's the commission ordinary citizens have least control of.
  • 10mo ago
• canyp 10mo ago
  Who are these fucks working to further mass surveillance when the people have already said 'no', twice?
  • transcriptase 10mo ago
    Politicians and bureaucrats who lacked a strong father figure is my genuine unironic non-disparaging answer. There are a great many people in this world who not only look to government for a sense of safety and direction, but seek to impose that paternalism on everyone else for “their own good”.
  • derelicta 10mo ago
    Bourgeois representatives who know they can't keep their wage-slaves in check if they organise online. They will absolutely extend it beyond the current scope
  • qcnguy 10mo ago
    People can't say no to the EU. That's such a common misconception on HN. The EU has a body it lyingly calls a parliament, which doesn't get to decide what laws are proposed or passed. It's more like an upper house that can only slow down or veto legislation, which is why it fills up with political nobodies who either just cheerlead for the EU or want to see their countries leave it. It's not like they can do anything else. So people say no and they just bring it back again, or get activist judges to discover that it was legal all along. It's not like voters can kick them out.
• alex1138 10mo ago
  So is GDPR the "good" part of it and we should just reject Chat Control? Or is GDPR also some sort of trojan horse that sounds great, but has downsides
  • canyp 10mo ago
    The GDPR is not a trojan horse. Rather, it did too little, too late. There are no negatives to it that I am aware of.
    • rsync 10mo ago
      GDPR et. al favor, and entrench, larger business firms and (relatively) handicap smaller firms. I’m not in full opposition but people should understand that there is a downside.
      • alex1138 10mo ago
        But the thing is I thought GDPR incorporated a scaling thing The pressure to comply I thought was less with smaller corps
  • jeltz 10mo ago
    The EU is a big organization woth a lot of prople with different agendas. It was easier for the privacy advocates to regulate companies thsn for them to stop government surveillance. So far the Parliament has mamsged to block new surveillance.
    • alex1138 10mo ago
      Yeah, I know. I'd just heard rumblings GDPR has flaws but considering how predatory corporations are I'm very willing to give it the old college try
• tick_tock_tick 10mo ago
  I feel like this just fundamentally misunderstands Europe stand on privacy. Privacy is for citizens and companies to each other not something the government is subject to.
  • impossiblefork 10mo ago
    Obviously Europe is huge, and in Sweden we've obviously regarded some privacy as unnecessary with respect to the government, however, that has been about financial things, which, being financial, affect everybody. We've always believed in things like postal secrecy.
• deleted 10mo ago
  [deleted]
• Hizonner 10mo ago
  Hmm. So, as I read the article, they've dropped the mandatory universal scanning (which has the effect of no longer requiring on-device scanning)... but added age verification. Voluntary scanning (voluntary for the provider, not for the serfs^H^H^H^H^Husers) is already happening under some kind of temporary directive. So that's kind of codifying the status quo. If they had just dropped the mandatory scanning, it might even be good to see it passed, in that it could eventually, slowly, drive all the users either to providers that don't scan... or better yet to P2P. There are probably some players who accepted the lack of mandatory scanning because they're betting they can find "noncoercive" ways to coerce all the major providers... but P2P is a lot harder to pressure that way. Even "mostly P2P" is harder to pressure, just because the infrastructure required is smaller. And it's not clear that all of the people doing the horsetrading understand that P2P is even possible. They've been coming back with this Chat Control bullshit every year, in an obvious "keep demanding it until you get a yes" strategy. But once they've passed something, it'll be harder politically for them to change it to ban effectively encrypted P2P messaging. They could end up screwing themselves. BUT the age verification ruins the whole thing, since it torpedoes privacy in general, and it probably, depending on how it's phrased and who it binds, effectively bans P2P messaging. I wonder how many people involved intentionally took that into account, versus how many just saw AV as something vaguely authoritarian that could be put in to placate the forces of Control(TM).
• maxdo 10mo ago
  As a liberal person, I have an unpopular opinion, but I’m a national who’s country is at war. These are adequate reactions and preparations before war. The West should be done with its rosy glasses. There’s still almost religious rejection of the possibility of war in their territory. We are on the brink of a fierce war with Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, and a few traitors you are not aware of. They have more resources (oil, gas), production capabilities, as well as intelligence, and what’s more important, counter-intelligence. This move improves counter-intelligence. Essentially, it’s an attempt to prevent the looming war. It’s not an evil act; it’s a cowardly measure compared to the direct acts of aggression of NATO. If you think this time America will save the entire West like in movies, you are wrong. With recent drone capabilities without going nuclear, no place is safe.
  • Hizonner 10mo ago
    Yeah no. That's not what any of this is about. This is exactly what they claim it is: more power for domestic law enforcement. Your apocalyptic vision is very, very far from certain, but also... > This move improves counter-intelligence Evading any kind of mass surveillance is basic tradecraft for spies. You're not going to get a lot of counterintelligence out of it. Especially because it's all structured to filter the information through mostly-non-spooky operators of communication services before your counterintelligence people get to see it. What it does improve is good old fashioned non-counter intelligence for the other side. A lot of intelligence targets don't have the kind of OPSEC that spies have. And with adversaries at that level, you can't assume you control who has access to your back doors.
  • babush 10mo ago
    Scanning my messages with my mom is going to give that much extra edge in a war with Russia. > If you think this time America will save the entire West like in movies Ugh
  • malwrar 10mo ago
    > These are adequate reactions and preparations before war. > Essentially, it’s an attempt to prevent the looming war. I don’t see how mass surveillance is going to be effective against Russian/Chinese/etc agents, let alone prevent war. Why do you assume that spies and saboteurs are going to use the surveilled systems? I think this is more about controlling citizens than it is about monitoring foreigners.
• puppycodes 10mo ago
  Another law that will only apply to the poor. Politicians and the rich will be exempt.
  • derelicta 10mo ago
    They literally applied for exceptions for themselves and law enforcement xD
• cynicalsecurity 10mo ago
  > Yesterday, this revised version was quietly greenlit by Coreper, essentially paving the way for the text’s adoption by the Council, possibly as early as December. It hasn't been passed yet. We'll see.
• vivzkestrel 10mo ago
  https://archive.is/20251127215257/https://unherd.com/2025/11/europes-new-war-on-privacy/ https://archive.is/20251127215257/https://unherd.com/2025/11...
• d4rkn0d3z 10mo ago
  Does the EU assume criminals are brainless? First, suppose two child pornographers get together and agree on a set of word substitutions that remove the key words and phrases deemed suspect. Now the authorites are scanning chats about flowers being planted, or birds being watched, etc. that are actually about targeting victims. Then the only detected uses of suspect words and phrases are accidental. If the authorites learn the new lingo the perpetrators will evolve it. The only child pornographers that will be caught are the very stupid ones but they would have been caught by other less invasive means. Meanwhile, the mass surveilance will destroy the free market. Imagine having to negotiate contracts when every business is a global corporation that knows what colour underwear you are wearing from scanning all of your chats. That means every business has a permanent information asymmetry in its favour, in every economic transaction you will ever make. Try to negotiate the purchase of a car, home, and so forth. It would seem the end of freedom is nigh, listen for the sound of cheering and applause. Isn't it obvious that mass surveilance only works on those who can be kept ignorant of it? If people know about surveilance then their behaviour is altered. How do entire nations and groups of nations fall for nonsensical plans like chat control. The idea of chat control is to combat child vicimization by setting authorities on impossibly costly, technically insane strategies that can be thwarted by a high functioning chimpanzee. What am I missing?
• metalman 10mo ago
  it makes no difference how far "governments" go down the authoritarian openly fascist path. Real world pressure from climate change, demographic changes, the effect of the developing world rising, and all of it happening in a world where hydraulic despotism is no longer viable, as there is no way to force the world's continuing reliance on pipe lines and sole sources of technology. The last gasps of the colonial gentocratic cleptocracy are going to be uggly. The adsurdity of trying to hide the enslavement of the entire worlds population behind exactly ONE case of technology bieng used to prosecute (not catch) ONE murderer is only going to highlight the thousands and thousands of cases that are, and never will be investigated at all.
• sebow 10mo ago
  Firstly, EU =/= Europe. Secondly: the death of EU cannot come soon enough. 10 years ago euroskeptics like me were wrongfully called "russophiles" (lmao), even though I'm from a country that is constantly threatened by Russia with drones, propaganda, etc. (RO for one's curiosity). Ironically enough, for those coming from ex-communists countries, EU sure looks increasingly like USSR, but with blue instead of red. It's infinitely better than communism, sure, but the optics and path of EU resemble those of USSR in it's "wellbeing of workers"(and other socio-cultural issues) propaganda phase(the irony is Russia here, obviously). History never repeats, but it rhymes. And a calcified supranational institution delves into authoritarianism in the later stages of its existence. Reform never happens, and if it does, it’s at face value. It’s much “easier” (for the people in those institutions) to double-down on the status quo position rather than reform; and obviously it becomes increasingly harder for the vast majority of people to voice their opinions or concerns, especially those not aligned with the status quo. (* Key difference here is NATO which is US-led and EU which is still Western Europe-led; US is still a functional democracy unlike EU institutions) Although it’s not really a very complex topic and the causal factors are relatively simple (at least to identify, solutions are much harder to propose [mainly due to the mentioned constant double-downing]), it would take a long time to explain/convince why the existence of the “current” EU is detrimental to Europeans (at least to the people not aligned with the status-quo). So-called benefits stopped at the common market treaty (EEC) iteration of the EU. Security is not and should not be in the EU’s purview, we have NATO for that. And the most obvious issues that the EU keeps worsening are socio-cultural positions that either (1) dilute the differences between different nations (2) [in case (1) was not a “problem” due to shared values] directly propose completely different values and/or positions. There’s no “objective morality” debate to be had here, democracy does not inherently mean choosing the most “scientific”/“moral”/(any other metric) position in policy: it simply means choosing what the majority of people want (If you want to change policy: change people’s minds). The double-downing of the “EU regime” is usually defended with the rhetoric that it does so in the name of “democracy”, “morality”, “tolerance”, “objective wellbeing of society”, etc. but there’s no mechanism for true democracy if the EU undermines/punishes the will of individual nations on the pretext that “it does not conform to EU-wide proposed policy”. This leads to “multi-step” issues and other regional conflicts between interests of nations (the winning bloc [usually the wealthier one] gets to basically impose policy on the smaller one). I’m quite off-topic on the subject of privacy, but my key point is this: don’t expect things to get better; or at least not without a huge cost. Recent pullbacks from the EU regarding the DSA/AI Act/GDPR are done so out of necessity: the EU is losing ground massively (= money) in the tech space due to stupid policies made by dumb bureaucrats. Half-assed “reforms” like these will not make huge improvements (mainly due to the unchanged fiscal policies [which are going to get worse: upcoming euro stablecoin]) but will keep the EU afloat amongst those who can’t see the sinking ship. Oh, you like privacy? Well, expect it to get worse, as eID is surely coming for all citizens in the name of safety (which has been eroded due to “our” [i.e. regime’s] stupid policies). Finally, as I foresee some will keep replying with “Russian <something>”, let me just say this: pray the downfall of the EU won’t be an opportunity for Russia to do anything. At this rate in the regional conflict, Russia doesn’t look good long-term, but if history has tried to teach us anything, it is that Russia’s unpredictable.