The founder of the Ethereum cryptocurrency, Vitalik Buterin, expressed his opinion that the EU proposals for “chat control” have failed. According to him, this is a huge victory for the public. The programmer and developer is grateful to the people who worked to achieve this result and protect the rights of citizens of the European Union.
The fact is that the Council of the European Union has rejected a controversial proposal aimed at scanning personal messages. It has been discussed for over 2 years and has faced opposition from various civil society groups and privacy advocates.
The initiative is aimed at creating “detection orders” that allow users to compare messages, files and photos with government databases of images of criminals. EU officials have proposed using AI to study text conversations to predict potential illegal actions against citizens under 18, leading some critics to dub the proposal "chat policing."
Many EU civil society groups opposed the legislation, arguing that it would undermine the fundamental right to private communications. Experts emphasized that such methods must be narrowly targeted and subject to strict judicial oversight.
“Government systems that scan files and break encryption have minimal public support and no support in EU law. Those who most need safe communication—lawyers, journalists, human rights activists, political dissidents and oppressed minorities—will suffer the most from such invasive systems,” the experts assured.