[1] https://www.iwf.org.uk/policy-work/preventing-the-upload-of-...
cc 2.0 is a different beast.
Chat Control 2.0 is the worrying one because it mandates scanning and bans E2EE.
These two things should not have both been given the same branding.
the confusion is purposeful, because it is easier to convince people that 1.0 is okay, which makes 2.0 appear like a version bump of the same thing.
Therefore it makes Chat Control 2 a harder sell.
To be fair I think "<anything> Control" makes it pretty clesr it's nefarious. They missed the opportunity to call it "Chat Safety".
The problem with this software is at the very core of why any sane person should reject it; a company like Thorn has no incentive whatsoever to actually come up with something that would work properly, especially since the target demographic that is to be monitored, is European. No worries if some firmware update bricks a massive amount of devices. Good for business. And I bet the US Government would also prefer if they prioritized having the backdoors work properly for listening in, over having the software scan properly (taking all the cultural and linguistic differences across the continent into account) just so that it will be capable of actually flagging what it is (for now) meant to flag.
Having your entire infrastructure of digital devices augmented with surveillance software is a bad idea in itself, but it's sheer madness if you're having this done for the whole of Europe, by using an American software endlosung/solution that was pushed by a Hollywood-actor who was so genuine in his motivation to save the children... truly impressive show of tears for someone who had the chance to save a number of girls from his predatory co-star a long time ago, like, to save them for real, yet he chose not to intervene... Years later, he's with Thorn, but still what he knows best is acting, so instead of focussing on actual victims, he's acting as if he gives a toss about present day children, knowing full well he is selling a dodgy technology using horror-scenarios they actually invented themselves for this very purpose.
In subsequent years this has led to an actual increase in number and variety of perpetrators in the field of sexual abuse and/or trafficking of minors - where it was quite a niche field in crime before - niche and overall way more predictable, making it possible to prevent quite a bit of it, too. Thanks to the fearmongering and constant need for succesfull detection of victims (as it is the metric they've used for years to keep the people providing them with money and power excited about the project) it has become much more problematic. The efforts of groups like Thorn have so effectively spread these horrorstories by pushing them as 'news' using so many newsoutlets, that this in itself caused a whole new demographic of messed up people to act them out, making the horrors a reality.
All this should be enough for anyone to know that, if you're totally hellbent on having a thing like chat control implemented, doing so by choosing to stick with software sold by these people or anyone from their circles will be disastrous.
Easier to push through if the only thing they're changing is "may" to "must".
The trajectory is crystal clear: access to information (AI), control over personal finance (CBDC), privacy of personal communications (handful of big tech MITM in everything), metered social interactions (today China, tomorrow the world over).
It doesn't even need guns; Nepalese youth managed to stop social media censorship there just by going to the political capital and threatening to beat the MPs to death.
The coming revolution will be well deserved I think.
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2026/07/two-teens-learn-the-har...
The worst thing I have to hide is knowledge about my intentions, none of which are bad/illegal/immoral.
Scan away, I'd rather try to protect my children, other children from unscrupulous characters.
Correction: None of which are bad/illegal/immoral _right now_. The "I have nothing to hide" crowd will surely change their tune the moment any of their data starts to be used against them.
(not even joking https://www.csam.be/en/index.html )
Fantastic quotes for services the Belgian government offers:
"Make your life easier with CSAM"
"CSAM ensures that everyone follows the same rules"
"If you are interested in a service CSAM has to offer, please go straight to our Contact page"
It already was in force, and EU states are presumably using it right now despite that being illegal. Only to protect the children, of course.
Are you going to arrest someone for writing code? Are you going to arrest people who use private communications? Sounds like a legislator carve out hot and ready to happen.
I get the point, ban E2E, OK sure, but what if some software is designed in such a way that the company doesn't provide it, but it just happens to be compatible with the protocol extension? Are you going to arrest the authors if they don't explicitly ban it?
Yeah, right.
On the other, they need access to all of your data.
It's entirely possible that politicians just want to do something about CSAM and young people having their mind twisted by social media. The electorate do seem to be keen on some sort of action.
except that honest-to-God child rapists get extremely lenient sentences in Western Europe and rarely (if ever) get deported afterwards.
In good faith this could be summarized as "Personal data should be used for public safety but not for profit" - but that philosophy is definitely a strong contrast with the basic American philosophy towards civil liberties.
Errrr, america does not look like country that cares about that. It does care about liberties of rich companies tho.
Now one basic principle of democracy is that supreme courts are superior to the people in power. Someone needs to watch the lawmakers so to say. Because it could actually be that the European commission enacts laws that are illegal. And Chat Control 2.0 could actually be illegal because it violates the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. However, somebody has to take them to The Court of Justice of the European Union to test it.
Personally, the politics of Europe is really not for me, but I can see why others might find it attractive. In the end, history will show us which path is adaptive.
Children protection and russian propaganda are the tried and tested covers at enforcing age verification, message scanning, and probably any future pan-european surveillance network.
For example, Palantir gets access to "large and diverse (government) databases with Dutch citizens’ data for analysis" (including mental health treatment data) under the GPDR to help police in the Netherlands do terror investigations (from 2012 to 2019). I'm sure you can appreciate the wisdom and privacy-enhancement in that just as much as me!
There are large lists of private organizations that get access to government data about citizens ... every country has multiple (public and secret ones).
Oh, they also "failed to mention" this to parliament, and this was only discovered after a journalist got a tipoff and requested financial data about the deal ... for about 5 years. Of course, there was never even the slightest investigation into this.
https://nltimes.nl/2025/08/22/dutch-police-also-use-controve...
(paywalled) https://www.volkskrant.nl/tech/ook-nederlandse-politie-gebru...
Let's not forget that these are the people and laws that are supposed to represent and help you, not the other way around. While private companies have no such obligation.
> supposed to represent and help you, not the other way around. While private companies have no such obligation.
Exactly my point.
The probability of a (my or your) child enduring harmful content, perpetuated and enabled by Meta/Google (in particular) is almost a certainty.
that is why police already have access to mechanisms to remove privacy from people suspected of being a pedophile.
You are agreeing with me :)
i am absolutely not :)
you want to provide unfettered warrantless access to all of your communications. ive been fighting against that sort of thing for approaching 40 years now.
I don't understand that part then. You can't break open E2EE by willing it open.
Right now, if I wanted a new account, I walk into any supermarket, spend a quid, and I've got a burner, with WhatsApp.
the mechanism to remove privacy from suspects is typically called a warrant.
(end-to-end encryption does not matter if you possess one of the ends)
For fuck's sake, my country's entire media/intellectual class protected an avowed and even boasting pedophile during his entire life! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabriel_Matzneff
i suppose the times have changed from when most people on the internet were cypherphunk. now it's common to see people say "i have nothing to hide, please scan all of my communications", unironically invoking "please think of the children".
[0] https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/posts/chat-control/
[1] https://edri.org/our-work/european-commission-must-uphold-pr...
[2] https://freiheitsrechte.org/en/themen/freiheit-im-digitalen-...