Monday, May 08, 2023

EU Lawyers Say Plan to Scan Private Messages for Child Abuse May Be Unlawful

THE GUARDIAN: Under proposed ‘chat controls’ regulation, any encrypted service provider could be forced to screen for ‘identifiers’

According to the internal EU legal advice, the regulation ‘risks falling foul of a judicial review on multiple grounds’. Photograph: DCPhoto/Alamy

An EU plan under which all WhatsApp, iMessage and Snapchat accounts could be screened for child abuse content has hit a significant obstacle after internal legal advice said it would probably be annulled by the courts for breaching users’ rights.

Under the proposed “chat controls” regulation, any encrypted service provider could be forced to survey billions of messages, videos and photos for “identifiers” of certain types of content where it was suspected a service was being used to disseminate harmful material.

The providers issued with a so-called “detection order” by national bodies would have to alert police if they found evidence of suspected harmful content being shared or the grooming of children. » | Daniel Boffey, Chief reporter | Monday, May 8, 2023

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