A European Commission proposal to fight child abuse on messaging apps raises the eyebrows of security experts: “The most advanced mass control system ever launched outside of China and the Soviet Union,” it says. This is what’s going on.
Child Abuse and Messaging Apps
The European Commission wants to prevent the distribution of photos and videos related to child abuse. According to Europol The popularity of messaging apps such as WhatsApp and Telegram means that child pornography can easily circulate without punishing perpetrators. End-to-end security keys allow only the sender and recipient to view the content of the shared content.
The European Commission calls encryption “essential for cybersecurity and the protection of fundamental human rights”, but it also recognizes the problems with encryption. One of the ideas for identifying the spread of child abuse on chat apps is through a technology called client-side device scanning. NU.nl† An algorithm must be able to detect cases of child abuse in text and images in encrypted conversations. The intention is that images will be automatically compared with known pictures of child abuse that are already circulating online.
‘Creepy’
Cyber security experts are dismissive, because in order to detect specific texts and images of child abuse, all content of encrypted messages must be analyzed. does not exist,” says Matthew Green Cryptographer of Johns Hopkins University in a series of tweets† He also calls the proposal “the most advanced mass control system ever launched outside of China and the Soviet Union”.
Furthermore, experts point out that the proposal is at odds with the European Union’s own online privacy legislation. It is important, however, that this is a proposal that is still being worked out and even if the European Commission wants to go in this direction, the proposal must also be approved by Parliament. In recent months, the European Union has passed laws that actually benefit citizens’ online identities. For example, next year you will be able to send a message with messaging app X to a friend who uses messaging app Y. And also for governments there will be new online rules†
Do you think that end-to-end encryption is an important functionality of messaging apps? Or is it not an aspect that you attach great importance to? Let us know in the comments at the bottom of this article.
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– Thanks for information from Androidworld. Source