The European Parliament could—and should—demand for Chat Control 2 to be withdrawn before approving the new European Commission.
On November 5th, the European Parliament’s LIBE committee will hold its hearing with Magnus Brunner, Austria – the new EU commissioner for internal affairs. As such, he will be responsible for Chat Control 2 / the CSAM regulation.
These hearings are always a power play between the Commission and the Parliament. Often, one or several proposed commissioners will have to be replaced.
As the European Commission still supports the original proposal for Chat Control 2 (AI to analyze the content of all types of electronic messages), there is an apparent conflict with the European Parliament, which rejects CC2 in all essential parts.
In short, the European Parliament should demand that the European Commission withdraw the CC2 proposal before confirming Brunner and the new Commission.
There are many tricky questions regarding the outgoing Commission and its handling of CC2. We have improper connections between organisations and companies that sell technical tools for CC2 and the Commission. We have public servants in the Commission who are also lobbyists regarding CSAM. We have rigged Eurobarometer opinion polls on CC2 (with results opposite to national polls). We have the Commission’s micro-targeted ad campaign for CC2 on X, which conflicts with EU rules for political advertising. What does Commissioner to be Brunner think of all of this?
What does Brunner say about the Commission’s and the Council’s legal services opinions stating that CC2 breaches fundamental human rights? What about the EU data protection officer and the UN human rights commissioner agreeing with this critique? What about the hundreds of academics agreeing with this critique? What about the EU Commission admitting (page 13) that CC2 breaches the right to privacy, private correspondence, freedom of speech, etc.?
What does Brunner have to say about the member states in the Council’s spending years and 30+ negotiation rounds trying to find a qualified majority on CC2 – but still not succeeding?
What has Brunner to say about the European Parliament rejecting all central components in the Commission’s proposal about CC2 – in a unique agreement between all party groups?
Is Brunner prepared to withdraw CC2?
If Chat Control 2 is seen as a serious obstacle to the approval of the new EU Commission, it might very well be withdrawn.
The European Commission still supports its original proposal for AI analysis of the content in all kinds of electronic messages. The member states in the Council are trying to impose client-side scanning of messages with spyware on users’ phones and computers.
The European Parliament has a unanimous cross-group agreement stating:
- No scanning of end-to-end encrypted messages.
- Detection orders should only be directed towards suspected lawbreakers, not users in general.
- A court of law must issue such detection orders.
- There should be no AI scanning of content in user’s electronic messages.
- There should be no age verification for messaging apps.
- It should be possible to use messaging apps anonymously.
The Parliament should stand firm behind all of this as a prerequisite for confirming the appointment of Commissioner Brunner and the new European Commission.
Resources:
• Chatcontrol.se »
• Chatcontrol.eu »
• StopScanningMe.eu »
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