A key body of European Union lawmakers remains deadlocked over a controversial legislative proposal that could force millions of messaging app users to agree to have their uploaded photos and videos scanned by an AI for child sexual abuse material (CSAM).
Critics of the plan, ranging from tech industry messaging giants like WhatsApp to privacy-focused players like Signal and Proton; to legal, security and data protection experts; as well as civil society and digital rights groups; and A majority of lawmakers across the political spectrum in the European Parliament warn that the proposal will break encryption, arguing that it represents an existential threat to the bloc’s democratic freedoms and fundamental rights such as privacy.
Opponents also argue that the EU plan will fail in its purported goal of protecting children, suggesting that law enforcement will be swamped by millions of false positives as app users’ everyday messages are sent through faulty AI-based CSAM detection systems.
A meeting of ambassadors representing the governments of the 27 member states of the bloc was expected to reach a position on the file on Thursday to start negotiations with the European Parliament after the Belgian presidency put the issue on the agenda of the meeting of today. However, a spokesperson for Belgium’s permanent representative to the EU confirmed to TechCrunch that the issue was dropped after it became clear that the governments were still too divided to achieve a qualified majority on a negotiating mandate.
“We intended to reach a mandate at today’s ambassadors’ meeting, but it was not yet clear whether we would have the necessary majority,” the Belgian spokesman said. “In the last hours before the meeting… it was clear that the required qualified majority could not be reached today, so we decided to remove the item from the agenda and continue consultations between Member States to continue working on the text . ”
This is important as EU legislation tends to be a three-way affair: the Commission proposes legislation and Parliament and Council debate (and often amend) bills until a final compromise can be reached. But these so-called tripartite talks on the CSAM scanning file cannot begin until the Council adopts its position, so if Member States remain divided, as they have been for about two years since the Commission presented the CSAM exploration proposalthe file will remain parked.
Earlier this week Signal president Meredith Whittaker stepped up her attacks on the controversial EU proposal. “[M]Expanding mass scanning of private communications fundamentally undermines encryption. Full stop,” he warned, accusing regional lawmakers of attempting a cynical shift from client-side scanning to try to cover up a scheme that amounts to mass surveillance of private communications.
Despite loud and growing alarm over the bloc’s apparent hard turn towards digital surveillance, the European Commission and Council have continued to push for a framework that would require messaging platforms to support scanning of citizens’ private messages, even end-to-end. encrypted (E2EE) platforms like Signal, instead of supporting More targeted searches and separation for E2EE platforms proposed by MEPs in the European Parliament last year..
Details from last month of a revised CSAM proposal released by the Belgians for the consideration of the governments of the Member States emerged through leaks, causing fresh consternation.
Pirate Party MEP Patrick Breyer, who has opposed the Commission’s CSAM scanning plan from the beginning, argues that the Council’s revised proposal will require messaging app users in the EU to agree to scan all images and videos that they sent to others, through a technical agreement. Plan text couches as “load moderation” or else you’ll lose the ability to send images to others. “The leaked Belgian proposal means that the essence of the EU Commission’s extreme and unprecedented initial chat monitoring proposal would be implemented without changes,” he warned at the time.
Makers of private messaging apps, including Signal, also warned they would leave the EU rather than be forced to comply with a mass surveillance law.
In a press email today, Breyer welcomed the failure of enough EU ambassadors to agree on a way forward, but warned that this is likely just a stay of execution, writing: “For now, surveillance extremists between EU governments and Big Sister [home affairs commissioner] Ylva Johansson They have not managed to obtain a qualified majority. But they won’t give up and could try again in the coming days. When will they finally learn from the EU Parliament that effective, court-proof and majority-capacity child protection needs a new approach?
Also responding to the Council’s setback in a statement, Proton founder Andy Yen made a similar comment about the need to continue the fight. “We must not rest on our laurels,” he wrote. “Anti-encryption proposals have been defeated before only to be repackaged and returned to the political arena again and again and again. “It is vital that privacy advocates remain vigilant and do not fall for the trap and façade when the next attack on encryption is launched.”
It certainly seems that any celebration of the Council’s current divisions over the file should be tempered with caution, as member state governments appear to be within a hair’s breadth of reaching the qualified majority needed to start talks with MEPs, in which We will immediately pressure parliamentarians to agree to legislate for mass scanning of citizens’ devices despite their own opposition. “We are very, very close to a qualified majority,” the Belgian spokesperson told TechCrunch. “If only one country changes its mind, we have a qualified majority and we have a mandate for the Council.”
The spokesperson also told us that Coreper’s final meeting next week, the last before the end of its six-month mandate, already has a full agenda, suggesting that talks to try to agree the Council’s mandate will fall to Hungary. , who assumes the rotating presidency of the Council. for six months starting July 1.
“As far as we are concerned, as a presidency, in the coming days (at expert level) we will continue working and to see if the Member States that were not happy or satisfied with the proposal we will continue to discuss how we can fine. -Adjust it so that it is viable for everyone,” added the spokesperson. “And then it will be the next presidency who will debate it.
“As far as we know, they are interested in continuing to work on the issue. The Commission is also ready to do so. And parliament is waiting for us, so we have to do it.”