Yet another reason why I cycle (and this will work fine until all bikes become “smart” e-bikes).
Involuntary mass surveillance: research uncovers chat control lobby network
A broad network of tech companies, foundations, security agencies and PR agencies lobbies for chat control at the highest EU level. Research by several European media outlets now reveals the multi-million dollar connections.
In an extensive research, Zeit Online, BalkanInsight and other European media trace how IT and AI companies together with foundations, NGOs, security authorities and PR agencies have been lobbying for so-called chat control for years and at the cost of millions of US dollars.
It has also been known for a long time through research by netzpolitik.org that the US actor Ashton Kutcher lobbies for chat control with his organization Thorn - from which he recently resigned. But the network is far larger.
Thus writes Zeit Online:
Ashton Kutcher, the Hollywood star turned AI entrepreneur, is the publicly visible face of this industry. But while at least parts of his commitment to European chat control are public, there is a broad lobbying campaign going on in the background of the new EU legislation.
According to the research, in addition to Kutcher and his activities, there is “a whole web of lobbying associations and organizations” that maintains close ties to EU Commission President Ursula (“Zensursula”) von der Leyen and EU Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson.
Access to the highest level
According to the research, internal documents of the EU Commission show that Ursula von der Leyen and Ylva Johansson were closely advised by Thorn. Officially, the company presents itself as a non-profit organization, but with “Safer” it also sells software that is supposed to detect depictions of child abuse with the help of so-called artificial intelligence. Among its customers is the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which spent more than four million U.S. dollars to purchase software licenses, as reported by Die Zeit.
Thorn has hired high-profile lobbyists - including the lobbying firm FGS Global. In 2022 alone, Thorn paid more than 600,000 euros to FGS Global, writes Zeit Online.
The engagement had obviously been successful: representatives of the PR firm took part in expert meetings on Thorn’s behalf, and the EU Commission allowed Thorn to be present at important decision-making meetings on several occasions. According to the research, which also evaluated communications, there was continuous mail contact.
Lobbyist and Commission employee in one
According to the research, in addition to Kutcher and his Thorn Foundation, the organization WeProtect Global Alliance also lobbies at the highest level. Antonio Labrador Jimenez is a member of this organization, who also works as a high-ranking employee of the Directorate-General for Home Affairs (DG Home) at the EU Commission - and is responsible there for the controversial legislative initiative.
However, according to the research, WeProtect is not an ordinary civil society organization, but a government-affiliated institution that also includes companies. Zeit Online writes:
It grew out of two government initiatives, one co-founded by the EU Commission and U.S. authorities and the other by the U.K. Home Office. In 2016, the two initiatives were merged to form WeProtect.
According to the research, government representatives and security authorities sit on the organization’s board, and its members include child protection organizations, virtually all major intrernet corporations, as well as numerous governments.
24 million dollars from the Oak Foundation
According to Zeit Online, WeProtect is “something of a rallying point for all those forces who are convinced that monitoring all communications is a sensible means of combating abusive images”. Another member of the WeProtect board is Douglas Griffiths, who in turn is president of the Oak Foundation.
Zeit Online describes him as “probably the most important funder of the lobby around chat control.” His Oak Foundation has not only provided WeProtect with generous support for strategic communications, but has also financed a tight network of civil society organizations and lobbyists who have taken the fight in favor of Johansson’s proposal to Brussels. This network, he said, was organized under the name ECLAG. According to BalkanInsight’s research, the Oak Foundation has poured more than $24 million into various organizations such as Thorn or ECPAT for lobbying around chat control since 2019.
At their core, the organizations’ goal is to set a precedent for other governments with chat control in the EU, a target that Ashton Kutcher also brought up at lobbying events.
According to the research, the Oak Foundation’s financial support also gave rise to the Brave organization, which then in turn sought advice from the PR firm Purpose, part of Capgemini SE. The cost of $1.9 million was again borne by the Oak Foundation. Purpose had apparently met repeatedly with members of Ylva Johansson’s cabinet, including Antonio Labrador Jimenez. Johansson herself appears in a video made by Purpose - and shares it on her Twitter account.
(Ylva Johansson with representatives of Brave, holding a sign from the organization.
EU Commissioner for Home Affairs Ylva Johansson poses with representatives of the lobbying organization Brave. - Screenshot / Twitter)
Security authorities also on board
Security authorities are also interested in chat control, according to the research. One topic is the expansion of chat control to other areas of crime. An internal document shows that Europol representatives requested this at a meeting in July 2022, it said:
There are other crime areas that would benefit from AI-assisted detection, Europol is quoted as saying in the minutes. The planned EU center could, after all, be used for purposes other than just searching for abuse images.
In that case, the interior commissioner’s office pointed out that Europol needs to be realistic with expectations “given the many sensitivities around the proposal.” But it shows that the expansion of chat control is already waiting in the wings.
Translated from German with deepl. Original can be found here.
The exact terms poppy used to get the cameras turned away from his house - though they still missed a gun store robbery well within view of all cameras
Cameras are fickle these days. It’s amazing what they see, and then the few very important things they seem to miss.
Ultra-mega-HD-face-recognition-realtime surveillance police state for thee, but not for me 
I’ll have to check if graphene allows that.
And probably all those criminals who will just stop using Whatsapp lol
This whole thing is a bit of a tempest in a teacup. “The UK is trying to outlaw encryption” is not accurate, it’s just a clickbait headline that a lot of folks appear to have fallen for.
Encryption was never the target for this bill. Rather, the bill intends to make social media/content platforms like Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube, etc. more directly responsible for content they host. Having the ability to scan messages was originally part of the ask, but they have already walked that back after being presented with the fact that doing so would not be possible without defeating end-to-end encryption.
Messaging platforms led by Meta’s (META.O) WhatsApp have opposed a provision in the law that they say could force them to break end-to-end encryption.
The government, however, has said the bill does not ban end-to-end encryption.
Instead it will require companies to take action to stop child abuse on their platforms and as a last resort develop technology to scan encrypted messages, it has said.
Tech companies have said scanning messages and end-to-end encryption are fundamentally incompatible.
Earlier this month, junior minister Stephen Parkinson appeared to concede ground, saying in parliament’s upper chamber that Ofcom would only require them to scan content where “technically feasible”.
Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uks-online-safety-bill-passed-by-parliament-2023-09-19/
This is just another case of legislators interfacing with technology, without really understanding the technology. Honestly it’s very common, especially since most politicians are old (no offense to old people) and don’t exactly have their finger on the pulse when it comes to technology.
Legislators: “Yeah we need to scan those messages too, think of the children.”
Big Tech: “We can’t actually do that because it’s encrypted.”
Legislators: “…Okay well if you figure out how to do it then we’re going to need those messages scanned too.”
Think about it logically: how would it be even possible to outlaw encryption? How does anyone even know if something is an encrypted message, or something else? Are they going to outlaw transmitting a random jumble of zeros and ones over the internet as well? Who is going to have the impossible task of trying to determine if a given packet is a random string of zeros and ones not worthy of investigation, or piece of data which has been encrypted?
Just to be clear, I am not trying to say I am in favor of the bill or think it is harmless or anything like that. All I am saying is it is not an attack on encryption like a lot of folks are making it out to be. Anyone who thinks that has fallen for the sensational clickbait headlines without doing any investigation. “The UK is trying to outlaw encryption” is fake news.
Nooope, Clause 122 in still included in the actual parliament signed bill (they’ve excluded it few days before but included again in a last minute). that is the only thing that matters.
Social media is absolutely not the real target of this bill, because they fully regulate them already, nobody cares about social media.
The only way it can be done is hardware level, like Apple does it already for iPhone, but for all new devices that will be out…On the protocols levels it’s obviously impossible, unless they want to go full North Korea mode and force use only unencrypted connections in their Red Star OS browser… 
Careful there…The only reason why i’ve used this tittle is because it was short, and i hate to write long topic titles.
It should say something like “…effectively make encryption useless for what it is, because it will be scanned before encryption occurs like on iPhone devices”
It is included in an amended form. I was actually going to link the same article–did you read it?
As we reported earlier this month, there was an admission from the government that breaking encryption would not be technically “feasible,” meaning it could not be enforced in such a manner.
It sounds like we are reading the same content but you are not coming to the same conclusion that I am, which is that clause 122 has had the teeth taken out of it.
Even the private messaging company Signal is breathing a sigh of relief. From the same article, which you linked:
Speaking to the BBC, Meredith Whittaker, president of Signal and an outspoken critic of the bill, said the company was “more optimistic than we were when we began engaging with the UK government.”
The problem with the bill is not its intent, it is that a lot of the bill is somewhat vague and was written in a way where certain pieces can be interpreted a number of different ways. Still, it does appear that as specific things are being addressed, logical concessions are being made.
This type of intervention is way beyond the scope of this legislation. If you think this is where the bill is headed you have really gotten carried away.
I disagree, I’m happy to double down on that one. It’s just clickbait FUD. The title itself is literally false, so “fake news” is correct. Even if there are some accurate and important bits of information in there, the title of the piece is inaccurate and was only chosen in an attempt to make the video appear more interesting and salacious.
Of course i have read it.
I just see zero reason to have this clause in any way shape or form.
Let me paraphrase it so you’d understand why it’s a legislative disaster, imagine for a second this:
We really want to kill all the cute puppies!
So far it’s not really “feasible”, but fear not - we’ll figure it out!
Do you see what i mean?
They can do whatever the hell they want, and they’ve stated intent to do some pretty damn tyrannical thing (if you ask me).
And i see your (likely) valid point of them being old and clueless about tech, however next guy who’ll inherit that legislation might be extremely evil and malicious (again very likely to assume, looking at history broadly) and will certainly use it.
Signal is more optimistic, doesn’t mean it’s great or happy btw.
But why? It nearly was accepted in it’s most insane form.
What in current Clause 122, intentionally vague state of intent makes you think / feel it can not be and won’t be done in the future?
If there was no such idea and intention - such clause (and arguably law) wouldn’t exist at all.
They might as well call it “Do anything we want with you, but a bit later bill”.
Good. (I’m not Mental Outlaw, unfortunately…just in case )
Have you watched it?
Is there much to disagree inside there?
What you are saying is exactly right and what i have been getting at from the beginning. I also think about it logically and i also in favor of the intent of the law to hold these companies responsible, to have them control the content.
I personally think it can be done visa vi all messages before they are sent get scanned for suspicious activity. If something comes up the the message is flagged and backed up for review before being encrypted and sent. Then they are reviewed and if there is nothing then the backup is deleted. If they find any type of criminal or suspicious activity then it gets sent to the proper authorities. Is that breaking encryption no … because it isn’t encrypted until the message is actually sent. It’s just a totally different way of doing it with the purpose in mind to control criminal activity, content, and prevent the platform from being used for this purpose.
Anything new related to the initial topic? 
I don’t see how you can scan a message before sending, scanning/filtering on the platform before being published would be very difficult since the AI are far from being accurate.
edit : https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/aug/22/google-csam-account-blocked
Factually - no.
Some platforms already do it now but only if it’s flagged by the sender or the receiver. What I’m suggesting is they do it before the message is ever encrypted and before it gets sent. I also believe it should be done vis vi random sampling which would be a percentage of sent messages randomly sampled. That way no one is targeted and no one knows whether their message was scanned or not but it could be. Users would be informed that this is how the encrypted platform works. I have no issue with that. It gives the platform the ability to try to have more control on the content and filter out criminal activity.
No, I am not interested in watching the video. In general, I am reluctant to watch videos like this to begin with if I can just read something instead. The fact that people will do or say anything to get clicks makes me somewhat distrustful of this kind of content, plus it’s frustrating how time consuming watching videos can be when I could be doing other things.
Considering the fact that the video is blatantly hysterical clickbait with a title that is literally false information, I gave it a pass without much thought.
Are you saying the video is so good I should watch it anyway, even though I am already familiar with this topic from reading about it? It seems unlikely to be worth the ten minutes it would take just to sit through it, plus it’s over two months out of date already.
Lhxv qexqp texq f qelrdeq qll… ibqp elmb fq tfii yb mlmzlok xka zfkbjx xka klq illpb qefkdp xka ixp sbdxp!
I’d say definitely, but since you don’t like to watch and like to read - who am i to judge you?
Still, don’t judge book by it’s cover.
Mental Outlaw does great videos, he’s not typical youtuber idiot.
Profound! 