At the meeting of EU interior ministers in Brdo, Slovenia, the government representatives today spoke out in favour of mandatory screening of our private communications. In the final declaration of the two-day conference convened by the Slovenian Council Presidency, the participants welcome the EU Commission’s intention to present draft legislation early 2022. It would oblige providers of messenger services such as Whatsapp and email services to automatically search encrypted and unencrypted communications, private messages and attached photos for suspected content and report it to the police.

Dr Patrick Breyer, MEP for the Pirate Party Germany, comments:

“The surveillance mania of the EU interior ministers does not even stop at our personal correspondence and private photos. Our smartphones are to be turned into spyphones and used against us.

Such mass surveillance has so far only been practised by totalitarian regimes like China. What will be next? Will all letters be opened and scanned? With mandatory chat control, all EU citizens will be placed under general suspicion. This poking in the fog will almost never end abuse but will only drive criminals further into the Darknet, making prosecution even more difficult.

I call on all Europeans now to stand up against this unprecedented plan. The opposition to the project is beginning to bear fruit which can be seen from the fact that the Commission has already had to postpone its totalitarian plans time and time again. But Zensursula and StasYlva will proceed anyway if we let them.”

Background: The EU Commission wants all smartphones to search messages and photos for allegedly suspicious content before they are sent via encrypted messaging services. Unencrypted communications are to be screened by the provider. If the algorithm detects suspicious content, a report would automatically be sent to the police. The stated purpose is the search for child pornography. However, according to the Swiss Federal Police, 86% of the personal messages and photos reported by the error-prone algorithms used so far only by US providers are not criminally relevant.

The EU Commission has been facing headwind for its plans (negative outcome of a public consultation, worldwide protests against Apple’s comparable spyphone plans, cross-party letter from MEPs. So far, however, it has only reacted by repeatedly postponing the bill. Ylva Johansson, EU Commissioner for Home Affairs, now announced it for the beginning of 2022.

On his homepage Breyer advises concerned citizens to phone EU Commissioners: chatcontrol.eu

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The office of MEP Patrick Breyer is looking for a campaigner on data retention and mass surveillance. The position will be offered on a freelance basis. The campaigner will support the political work of Patrick Breyer with a view to facilitating an EU-level project against data retention measures. The project will closely collaborate with civil society organisations and political actors throughout the European Union.

Responsibilities:

• Develop and maintain relationships with civil society organisations and external partners.
• Prepare and coordinate regular exchanges with civil society organisations and external partners.
• Develop, implement and evaluate public communication strategies and engagement with citizens and stakeholders.
• Draft social media material and press communications.
• Prepare and oversee campaign events
• Support and execute legal research on the subject of data retention.
• Draft policy briefings

Contract specifications:

• Freelance (working hours when it suits you)
• Remuneration: 1500 EUR per month for an estimated 15 hours a week workload
• Location: remote
• Starting date: as soon as possible
• Deadline for Applications: 24 November 2021

Qualifications:

• Experience in campaigning at national/European level
• Knowledge in the functioning of European institutions
• Understanding of and interest in the fight against mass surveillance, particularly knowledge of the history of data retention laws at EU and national level
• Excellent communication skills in English and German (other languages are an asset)
• Willingness to work with Open Source Software and other open technologies
• Full support for transparency in public affairs and deep respect for privacy in personal matters

If you would like to apply, please send your application documents (CV [without picture] and motivation letter) as a pdf file to europa@patrick-breyer.de (PGP key optionally available here), using the subject line “Application facilitator [YOUR NAME]”

patrick-breyer.de/en/data-rete…

Today‘s hearing of Facebook whistleblower Francis Haugen in the European Parliament has exposed the EU‘s unwillingness to take back control of the digital sphere, concludes Patrick Breyer, the Civil Liberties Committee‘s rapporteur for the planned Digital Services Act.

„Haugen warns that Facebook‘s vitual reality plans and the sensors in buildings it comes with will dramatically increase the threat of surveillance capitalism to our privacy. But the proposed European legislation fails to secure us a right to anonymity and fails to protect us against having our every action collected and used to manipulate us.

Haugen warns that Facebook‘s unreliable upload filters overblock massive amounts of valuable legal content such as on counter-terrorism. But the upcoming Digital Services Act has yet to tackle these error-prone censorship machines that disrupt essential media content, political speech, scientific discourse, education, minorities and many more are suffering on a daily basis.

Haugen‘s leaks prove that Facebook keeps prioritizing profits over the public good. But the EU keeps believing it can make Big Tech pursue a public interest agenda and fix problems by itself (‘risk-based approach’). This is naive at best. The only effective way to deal with the GAFAM‘s toxic recommender algorithms is to allow users to switch them off and use external recommender algorithms of their choice instead, for example non-commercial community algorithms. The only effective way to deal with the GAFAM‘s abuses of market dominance is to allow users to switch to alternative platforms and still keep in touch with their friends and colleagues across platforms (interoperability).

What we need is a political will to put users and our democratic institutions in control of the digital sphere, rather than continuing to trust in multinational corporations to shape the digital era we and our children are living in.“

Recording of hearing

patrick-breyer.de/en/haugen-te…