Germany is not supporting ChatControl – blocking minority secured
177 comments
·September 11, 2025ManBeardPc
joz1-k
I also think this is just a delay, not a final win. Also, this page hasn't been updated yet: <https://fightchatcontrol.eu/>
I recently heard a political discussion about this topic and was disappointed by the lack of technical competency among the participants. What we're talking about here is the requirement to run a non-auditable, non-transparent black box on any device to scan all communications. What could possibly go wrong with that?
kebman
Is this a good time to plug the creation of chat protocols running over distributed hash tables (DHT) (essentially a decentralized way of creating mini message servers) and with forward security and end-to-end encryption? I made a POF in Rust but I don't have time to dev this right now. (Unless angel investors to help me shift priorities lol...)
uyzstvqs
The bigger issue is that we need to make the EU actually democratic. Start by removing every branch but the European Parliament. That's the only solution.
rbehrends
What you are proposing would amount replacing the current bicameral legislature (with the European Parliament as the lower house and the Council of the EU as the upper house) with a unicameral legislature. That would actually make it easier for bad laws to be passed, especially as the supermajority required in the Council is currently the biggest obstacle for this kind of legislation.
I'll also note that nothing here is per se undemocratic. Both the Parliament and the Council are made up of elected members. The members of the Council (as members of the national governments) are indirectly elected, but elected all the same. Direct election is not a requirement for a democracy (see election of the US president or the US Senate prior to the 17th amendment or the Senate of Canada right now).
That does not mean that there isn't plenty of valid criticism of the EU's current structure, but claiming that it is not "actually democratic" falls far short of a meaningful critique.
HexPhantom
The EU isn't undemocratic, but it feels undemocratic to many, and that's a legitimacy issue worth taking seriously
hnhg
And neuter the influence of deep-pocketed lobbying entities - US entities in particular seem to spend a lot of money on influencing EU politics: https://www.lobbyfacts.eu/
jb1991
This site even has a disclaimer on the front page that its information is not necessarily accurate. Take it all with a grain of salt.
amelius
Wow, Apple paid 7M for 9 people to have 144 meetings with the EC. I'm in the wrong line of business.
On the other hand, I'm thinking can we find 9 unpaid volunteers on HN to do the same?
izacus
Funny how we never hear WHY EU is undemocratic in these posts. It's always this one line dropped in the middle of conversations.
And every time I push a bit the answer seems to be "EU didn't follow my preferred decision". :P
Vespasian
The EU council is formed by the democratically elected member states. This follows an "upper house" approach used in many european countries.
I'm strongly in favor of giving the parliament the ability to propose laws (directives). Currently only the comission can do that.
lmpdev
As an Australian normally subject to two upper houses (the current state I happen to live in is the only unicameral state) that seems very counter intuitive
The way it seems to work in practice (here at least) is most partisan/normative legislation goes through the lower house upwards
And bipartisan (or broadly unpopular or highly technical) legislation goes from the upper house down
It’s more complicated than that, but a one way flow committee sounds extremely restrictive for meaningful reform
A small number of pathways is a good thing, one lone process is probably not (you risk over fitting on both sides)
Edit: Australian legislation has a lot of flaws, but this multimodal setup from my experience is not one of them
incone123
Do any member states follow the model of only the non directly elected upper house can propose legislation?
msh
That would just transfer power from the small countries to the big countries.
NoboruWataya
Parliament needs to approve any meaningful EU legislation anyway. The Commission cannot legislate. The problem isn't that the EU is undemocratic, it's that our elected lawmakers all seem to want to trample our privacy for one reason or another (see: the UK)
Scarblac
That means removing souvereignty from the member states, and there's no way they're all going to agree on that any time soon.
ktosobcy
Erm... it's as democratic as it possibly can be when it comes to a union of independend, sovereign states...
We do have EP with directly elected MEPs; we have CoE which is indirectly elected but still represents the "will of the people" but on the state level; then we have the European Council which is also in a way representative of state interest and then we have indirectly elected by the aformentioned European Comission.
The concept of indirectly elected representatives is not new - in most democracies you vote for MPs and they then form the government and choose prime minister.
Given that the EU is "one level up" it complicates stuff. We could argue that we could make it completely democratic and only have the parliment but this would completely sidetrack any influence of the state.
So if we want to maintain the balance we have this convoluted system.
Ideally EP should have legislative initiative rights and the president of the EC should be elected more transparently (for example the vote in EP should be public).
psychoslave
Democracy is where people, or at least those given full citizenship, have a duty to debate and decide the rules they will be agreeing to follow, directly.
Anything else is green washing.
Sure we can always still keep nuances in the many actual regimes which pretend to be democratic. But still the baseline is to sell bullshit democracy.
Democracy require well educated citizen which are given the relevant resources and were raised with will to take the burden of civil service for life and dedication to thrive the whole society.
mrktf
Yes, sad part it will be implemented and I betting even in worse form than it is proposed... And worst part of it "safety" it for current governing party to destroy any opposition.
My wild guess it will voted for with overwhelming majority using "times changed" argument.
FinnLobsien
Let's hope it will be implemented in typical "Germany does anything on the computer" fashion where they endlessly debate into a theoretically comprehensive, but impossible to implement solution.
HexPhantom
The game isn't to win once, it’s to keep resisting every watered-down version they throw
immibis
What do you mean "we"? Politicians don't care about you and me, and protesting is merely a useful distraction.
ta1243
The only way to win the argument is to win the argument with the public.
In the UK the public overwhelmingly support the age controls, so even political parties who would otherwise oppose it just stay silent, because the public narrative
You have to shift the narrative. Farage does this - he's finally after 20 years managed to get elected to parliament, he's head of a company with 4 MPs, same say as the Greens, about the same as the nationalists, yet for 20 years he has steered the conversation and got what he wants time after time
iLoveOncall
> In the UK the public overwhelmingly support the age controls
This couldn't be further from the truth.
People usually support the idea if asked on the street in passing, but don't support the implementation at all.
WithinReason
It depends on how you ask the question:
ta1243
> > In the UK the public overwhelmingly support the age controls
> This couldn't be further from the truth.
> People usually support the idea if asked on the street in passing
So pretty close to the truth then?
immibis
Having public opinion on your side is necessary, but not sufficient. Politicians impose laws that people don't want all the time.
mytailorisrich
> he's head of a company with 4 MPs, same say as the Greens
The electoral system has been working against him. At the last general election Reform got a larger share of the vote than the Lib Dems, yet the result is that they got 5 MPs while the Lib Dems got 72.
The Brexit referendum and the current national polls that put Reform in first place at 27% (YouGov) show that they are not just "steering the conversation". When people's concerns keep being ignored at one point someone will come up to fill this "gap in the market", this is legitimate and how democracy works.
Vespasian
I was under the impression that Faraga was heavily advocating for Brexit and he and his supporters ultimately got what they wanted so at least some people should be really happy that it happened (the ones who went into it with realistic expectations at least).
ta1243
He's had 15 years of success without his vote in a westminster election getting to 15%
Actual election results:
2010: 3%
2015: 13%. He was the only party to endorse leaving the EU in that election.
2016: (52% vote to leave the EU)
2017: retired
2019: 2%
2024: 14%
Yet his prime policy was passed in 2016 and implemented in 2019.
You don't need people to vote for you to get your policies passed. You need people to just believe in what you say, and other politicians will see that and implement them. The most successful politicians see all sides "steal their policies" and implement them. That's assuming your goal is the policy, not the power.
mihaaly
The loudest and the weirdest get the most airtime. Not all conversations are golden. He is a lying, opportunistic, self-existence driven ass. Farage is not a reference for how to do things, not even close, not at all!
It is of course unfortunate that a big part of the population is heavily influenceable by almost anything that has some scary perspective, in whatever size, over-considering dangers to opportunities to the extremes (want to eliminate dangers, hopelessly), also can only hear what is too loud, so the real democratic conversations and resulting decisions are distorted a lot. Better focus on improving this, than put a self centered ass on the pedestal to follow!
ljm
Farage only has this traction because he's financed and platformed by interests (Russia, conservative Christian groups in the US, right wing media) that benefit from the division his inflammatory politics creates. This gives him and his party a disproportionate amount of attention compared to other, larger parties with more MPs.
The playbook that was overwhelmingly successful for making Brexit happen is being used again, but this time for immigration.
The fact he got elected as MP only serves to give credibility to his backers' narrative, given that he does not serve his constituency and is too busy schmoozing the US right wing. At one point in time he would have been forced to resign in disgrace for backroom dealing like this (as previous MPs have before).
robbingtherob
[dead]
timpera
It's not the end of the fight, but it's great to see that the efforts are working! I sent a handwritten letter to my MPs a few weeks ago about this issue but no answer so far...
riedel
They oppose breaking encryption, however, I see no true opposition to on device scanning, which is a bit worrying.
>The BMI representative explained that they could not fully support the Danish position. They were, for example, opposed to breaking the encryption. The goal was to develop a unified compromise proposal – also to prevent the interim regulation from expiring. [0]
Edit: source [0] https://www.bundestag.de/presse/hib/kurzmeldungen-1108356
silverliver
There is no on-device scanning without compromising privacy. Scanning that can detect child abuse can also detect human rights activists, investigative journalists, and so on. I imagine this technology can be easily used by the government to identify journalists by scanning for material related to their investigation.
On-device scanning is a fabrication that Apple foolishly introduced to the mainstream, and one that rabid politicians bit into and refuse to let go.
ACCount37
Some say "Apple got too much shit for on device scanning". I think they didn't get nearly enough.
If you as much as give the "think of the children" crowd an inch, they'll take a mile. And giving them on device scanning was way more than "an inch".
riedel
That is exactly the problem. I still can imagine that they come up with some scheme as a compromise, that particularly targets particularly encrypted group chats along with all kind of server side automatic scanning, that as you mention could be abused at least by intelligence to track non CSAM content. I wonder what other 'compromise' will actually be effectively possible.
lukan
"Es sei klar, dass privater, vertraulicher Austausch auch weiterhin privat sein müsse."
"Private communication needs to stay private"
I interprete this as not having a dumb police bot installed on my devices checking all my communication. That sometimes by misstake sends very private pictures away, because it missclassified.
This is what chat control means and I believe if most people would understand it, they would not be in support of it. It is no coincidence, that the outcry mainly happens in tech affine groups.
Dilettante_
I bet what the politicians mean is "we have to make sure our surveillance is safe, like our digital health data, so that no bad actors can tap it". The only one who should be reading your messages is you, the sender, and the government.
CjHuber
I know in the US it's very common to write emails or letters to their governor, but still I see it somewhat cynical. Like a popular tweet mattering much more than letters that probably won't be opened at all, and if it is opened I cannot imagine a MP reading all of them, more likely a clerk saying "You've got x citizens sending you letters about y", which would then again be somewhat valuable but I also can't imagine they have clerks opening every letter.
addandsubtract
I used the online form at fightchatcontrol.eu to send an e-mail to all of my representatives. Of the 90ish contacts, 4 replied – all agreeing to be against the proposal. One of them even mentioned the influx of mails they were receiving about the topic. So that gives me hope.
port11
The fight shouldn't have to be fought continuously. If legislation is shot down repeatedly, there should be a delay before it can be brought back again.
HexPhantom
Politicians notice when enough people take the time to reach out, especially in such a personal way
Raed667
Unless there is a law that says that the fundamental right to privacy is protected then we're bound to repeat this ordeal every couple of years.
BSDobelix
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948):
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with their privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honor and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks
_ink_
It's also in the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). But that has a big loop whole.
Article 8: Right to privacy
1. Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence. 2. There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.
tgv
Sounds like the European Court of Human Rights would annul it, but you can't be sure.
silverliver
Are all UN nations bound to this declaration or at least those joining after 1948?
flowerthoughts
No, human rights and children's rights declarations are ratified individually.
juliangmp
In Germany there is article 10 of the Grundgesetz. While it does allow exceptions (like through a warrant), I wouldn't be surprised that if this law was passed that our constitutional court would deny it based on article 10 (any maybe article 1, that one's important)
HexPhantom
It shouldn't be a constant uphill battle just to keep basic rights intact
victorbjorklund
There are laws about that already. However they have exceptions (and most people support exceptions. No one expects for example the privacy of ISIS terrorists be respected when they are investigated for terrorism and there are probable cause).
baranul
This is correct, but also the problem. Various governments and organizations don't want to respect privacy, because they see it as a means of control and profit.
contrarian1234
I don't mean this in an antagonistic way, but has anyone clearly articulated a right to privacy in a clear succinct way? Unlike other human rights, the right to privacy has always been a bit fuzzy with a ton of exceptions and caveats
I just find it hard to imagine the right to privacy encoded in to law in a way that would block this. For instance there is a right to privacy in the US, but it's in a completely idiotic way. The 14th Amendment doesn't talk about privacy in any way, and it's some legal contortions and mental gymnastics that are upholding any right to privacy there.
taink
What would pass "clear and succinct" in your opinion? I don't see how it is less clearly defined than any other human right.
Let's take international law[1]. Right to privacy is defined as protection from arbitrary interference with privacy.
Is this definition problematic? Privacy itself has a short definition too: the ability of one to remove themselves or information about themselves from the public[2].
I don't see what is unclear or verbose here.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_privacy#International [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privacy
Geee
It's simple game theory. If one player (government) has access to private information of all players (citizens), then it's not possible to keep the government from winning, i.e. becoming tyrannical. Losing privacy equals losing liberty.
contrarian1234
I think you missed my point entirely. I'm not trying to argue there shouldn't be any privacy or anything like that
That's not my questions at all. My question is, is there some good clear framework for what should and shouldn't be private. B/c otherwise it's kind of some meaningless platitude, like "everyone should be nice to each other"
zarzavat
Between this and Google locking down Android, one day the only way to get secure communications will be to buy Huawei etc. Thank God for China, bastion of free speech.
NikxDa
Yes, China, the bastion of free speech...
bcraven
I know HN takes a dim view on them, but that post was a joke. Of _course_ China isn't a bastion of free speech, that is why the joke is funny.
lyu07282
In a few decades the only uncensored communication possible will be using LoRa mesh networks smuggled into the west illegally by some human rights activists. Some people will always find a way to organize against our government's latest atrocities and genocides no matter how oppressive it is yet to become.
rapind
But I have nothing to hide! /s
Kim_Bruning
Instead of playing defense, I think we need to take positive steps.
Secrecy of Correspondence[1] is something that desperately needs to be extended fully to mobile devices.
Compare how many letters you get vs how many chat messages you send.
Secrecy of (mobile) communications should be recognized as a (natural?) right.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secrecy_of_correspondence
(edit: unbreak formatting)
mrtksn
IIRC It's Denmark that keeps pushing for this. Is there anyone here to give more background on that?
BSDobelix
>>Return of chat control: Something is rotten in the state of Denmark
https://www.euronews.com/next/2025/08/08/return-of-chat-cont...
wisienkas
I hate to see my country pushing for this. It has not touched the media at all in Denmark(Highly suspicious that even the gossip and drama medias have not touched the subject) and the public opinion is a hard NO for this type of regulation and invasion of privacy. I am yet to see anyone actually supporting this from a citizen perspective.
tucnak
The unfortunate reality is that a single largest lobbyist for Chat Control in the EU is, ironically, the US, namely the US intel community-affiliated orgs like Thorn, WeProtect, etc. The EU bureaucrats are gullible, and it's no excuse of course, however there's a reason why every time there's a new driver, a new country behind Chat Control proposals. This has been part of coordinated U.S. signals collection strategy. Nobody in Europe stands to gain anything from this besides the US as all tech solutions for this are provided by US companies and agencies alone. The boards of these orgs are crawling with Washington guys, & their activity is limited to foreign countries. Not once have they attempted anything of the sort on US soil.
mrtksn
Hmm, maybe the anti-chatControl movement should add some anti-Americanism in it then?
tucnak
I reckon that would only serve to play into their hands. There is just enough plausible deniability for conspiracy-theory optics. Moreover, European politicians really hate to be publicly humiliated like that, so it might as well achieve the opposite from desired effect. The Balkan Insight findings, among other journalistic results, were published years ago, and it had little, if any effect. The audience that would resonate with anti-American messaging on the subject are already catalysed contra ChatControl, and the undecided would just read this as conspiracy theory...
dathinab
Maybe, just maybe, (probably not) they learned something from the NSA/FBI (I don't remember) tricking the BSI into helping them with industry espionage against a large Germany company[^1]. and pretty much any technology widely used in chat control would be under tight US control, or Israel which in recent times also isn't exactly know to be a peace seeking reasonable acting country.
[^1]: Which I think was about car companies and pre-trump, pre-disel-gate. Also not the only time where it's known that the US engaged on industry espionage against close allies or Germany specifically.
Kelteseth
Proud to be a German today, for sure :)
inglor_cz
Yay for Dobrindt and vdL losing this fight :)
She is not called Zensursula without a reason.
riedel
I think the front lines are not that clear. Zensursula was actually a termed coined because she wanted the German equivalent of the online safety act in Germany back in the days. The 'Stasi 2.0' initiative (data retention at ISPs and online 'raids') was backed by some people in CDU and SPD (current ruling coalition). IMHO online safety (censorship) and chat control (privacy invasion) are different beasts, with different lobby groups as well.
Dilettante_
I mainly remember the Zensursula title in connection with the ISP-level DNS-blocking initiative (the Stopsign thing) which was to combat CSAM.
I remember all the nerds going "That's a slippery slope to blocking other stuff as well though", and being dismissed. Now we got the CUII blocking libgen, scihub, piracy sites and as I recently read on HN, russia today(that's not the cuii I'm pretty sure, but same mechanism).
phgn
[flagged]
null
notTooFarGone
ok buddy, you can be both proud of something and critical of other stuff without mentioning it in every sentence.
iyn
You don't have to be condescending, even if you disagree or think the situation is more nuanced. I think it's important that we're able to disagree in a polite manner.
tcldr
With a warrant from a judge people should be compelled to provide access to their encrypted files or be in contempt of court with all that entails. Anything else is overreach.
schroeding
You cannot prove the absence of e.g. a Veracrypt hidden volume or similar, though. Even if you honestly give up your key, you could still be either
A) held in contempt of court, if the authorities do not find what they expect for some reason and accuse you of using such techniques or
B) if you specify that such behaviour by law enforcement is overreach, have a clean way out for criminals, codified in law, heavily damaging the impact you may expect of such a law.
Y_Y
What's the difference between that and an incriminating paper document that the police believe you have hidden somewhere in the vast woods?
heikkilevanto
Wonderful idea. All I need to is to create an encrypted file with pedo pictures or terrorist plans or just white noise, send a copy to all my enemies, and tip off the authorities.
boxed
And what happens when your enemies can't produce the decryption key?
alexey-salmin
In many countries it's prison time
null
nickslaughter02
Just think for a moment how broken the EU model is. You don't want something to pass. Other citizens of your country don't want the thing to pass. Your politicians don't want that thing to pass. Your euro politicians don't want that thing to pass. Yet in the current model that doesn't matter one bit because your SOVEREIGN country may still be overruled by foreign countries and politicians.
It's unbelievable that we have allowed EU to spread into this all encompassing monster that deals with anything but economic cooperation among member countries.
-------------------
> European law has priority over any contravening national law, including the constitution of a member state itself
seabass-labrax
That is factually untrue. While governments of member states of the EU no longer have a direct veto against proposed EU legislation in many cases, the EU does not claim any sovereignty over member states.
If a member state fails to block a proposal, all that simply means is that the qualified majority[1] of representatives of other member states believes the legislation to be so important that the union would not work without it. Dissenting member states can seek to reverse or temper the legislation later, or simply leave the union - see Brexit. No sovereignty is violated at any point.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_in_the_Council_of_the_E...
nickslaughter02
> Primacy of European Union law
> The primacy of European Union law (sometimes referred to as supremacy or precedence of European law[1]) is a legal principle of rule according to higher law establishing precedence of European Union law over conflicting national laws of EU member states.
The principle was derived from an interpretation of the European Court of Justice, which ruled that European law has priority over any contravening national law, including the constitution of a member state itself.[2][3][4] For the European Court of Justice, national courts and public officials must disapply a national norm that they consider not to be compliant with the EU law.
seabass-labrax
The primacy of European Union law applies to member states of the European Union. That is part of what the countries agreed to in order to become a member state. Some countries negotiated opt-outs for specific laws that they felt shouldn't apply to them before joining - and disgruntled member states could attempt the same by threatening to leave.
The only way that the European Union can 'force' compliance of a member state is for the EU Commission (or, exceptionally, the Parliament and Council) to withhold EU funds from that member state. Those funds were never the property of the member state in the first place though - again, no infringement on national sovereignty.
fabbbbb
Is this a EU thing? Replace Country by municipality, province, state.
Vinnl
Other inhabitants of my town don't want something to pass. The local politicians of my town don't want something to pass. The politicians I elected to the national government don't want it to pass. Yet that doesn't matter one bit because my town my still be overruled by non-local towns and politicians.
This will always be a problem at every level.
paintbox
If entities comprising the union are not forced to compromise (and compromise by some type of majority is the most logical one), and want to pick and choose, then that is no union. And there can be no union like that.
shakesbeard
That's literally how any representative democracy work, just at a different level? The Free State of Bavaria could say the same about the Federal Republic of Germany.
egorfine
Excellent win!
See you next time.
teekert
Next time, when the proposal is worse, when less people care, and the methods to stop it no longer exist.
portaouflop
The struggle never stops, that is part of the human condition - you should embrace this endless cycle with confidence instead of cynical defeatism
antonvs
Dormammu, I've come to bargain
ktosobcy
Maybe an ECI (european citizens' initiative) that would burry the thing for good? :)
Glad we could delay it for now. It will come back again and again with that high of support though. Also the German Bundestag is already discussing a compromise: https://www.bundestag.de/presse/hib/kurzmeldungen-1108356. They are only unhappy with certain points like breaking encryption. They still want to destroy privacy and cut back our rights in the name of "safety", just a little less.