The EU still wants to scan your private chats – here’s what you can do about it

The EU’s controversial proposal to scan citizens’ private communications for child sexual abuse material (CSAM) is back on the agenda of regulators.

Hungary, the country that now leads the Council of Europe after Belgium, has revived what critics call Chat Control and MEPs are expected to vote on it later this month. After the Belgian presidency proposed a new version in June, remove the proposal from the agenda at the last minute, despite the strong backlash.

Popular encrypted messaging apps including Signal and Threema have already announced that they will cease operations in the EU rather than undermine user privacy. Keep reading as I explain what we know so far and how one of the best VPN apps could help if the proposal becomes law.

A new impetus for chat control

According to the new version of Chat Control leaked by Politico From Monday 9 September, communications providers will be able to decide for themselves whether they want to use artificial intelligence to mark images and text messages as suspicious.

These companies, which include messaging services like WhatsApp and email providers, are legally required to scan all user chats and report illegal content.

Scanning must be processed, even at the expense of encryption. This protection is implemented by end-to-end encryption services to ensure that the communication between sender and receiver remains private.

EU members now have time until September 23 to position themselves for or against the proposal.

According to the latest data Coming from the European Pirate Party, the vast majority of countries have already expressed their support – at least 19, including Belgium, Hungary, Italy, Sweden, Ireland and Spain. A few members (Estonia, the Netherlands, Slovenia, the Czech Republic and Austria) have abstained from taking sides for the time being, while only Germany and Poland opposed the bill.

German digital rights activist and member of the Pirate Party Germany, Patrick Breyer, is now calling on all EU citizens concerned about their privacy to contact their MEP and ask them to reject the proposalHe said: “We have two weeks to persuade our governments to reject chat controls and call for a new, truly effective and rights-respecting approach to keeping our children safer online.”

How a VPN Can Help

As mentioned, some providers are very critical about the possibility that they will be legally obliged to crack encryption.

Signal, for example, has been vocal about opposing what’s known as “side-scanning” since its inception. The company said it would leave the UK rather than undermine encryption. While it still appears in the UK’s Online Safety Act, the controversial provision has been halted until it is “feasible to do so.”

Meredith Whittaker, president of the Signal Foundation, echoed a similar view when EU lawmakers began considering Chat Control last year. Last June, she also disbelieved in the revised proposal’s attempt to circumvent the encryption problem.

The Belgian presidency has instead introduced the concept of ‘upload moderation’ to, they say, prevent encryption from being broken, as content must be scanned before it is encrypted.

“Whether you call it a backdoor, a frontdoor, or ‘upload moderation,’ it undermines encryption and creates significant vulnerabilities,” Whittaker tweeted (below) at the time in response.

All of this means that if the CSAM scanning proposal is ultimately implemented, there is a good chance that Signal, Threema and Tuta (formerly known as Tutanota) will leave the EU market or even be blocked for not complying with European regulations.

Therefore, you may need to quickly find a way to bypass these restrictions. This is exactly where a VPN comes in.

A VPN (virtual private network) is security software that not only uses encryption to prevent third parties from accessing the data leaving your device, but also spoofs your IP address location. This latter capability tricks your internet service provider (IPS) into thinking you’re browsing from a completely different country, allowing you to access otherwise geo-restricted content.

For example, imagine that Signal stops working across the European Union. To continue using the app, all you need to do is connect to a VPN server outside the bloc.

While I hope this measure won’t be necessary in Europe, it doesn’t hurt to think about options and alternatives. I’d recommend checking out NordVPN – Ny Breaking’s top pick at the time of writing – or, alternatively, our best free VPN page to get the safest freebie on the market.