It’s the weekend already, so let’s kick off a new section: privacy. Here I want to cover the most important news from the privacy world, and every once in a while I’ll throw in a tutorial on how to stay private online and which tools I personally use for that. I’m nowhere near an expert, but I think I’m above average, and I can help out from this little corner of the internet.
Without further ado, let’s talk about this week’s big story: the approval of Chat Control in the European Parliament.
Alright Goguma, what is that and why should I care?
So, what’s been in the news is that Chat Control 1.0 has been approved. This isn’t actually new — it was already in force until this past April, and what’s happened now is that it’s been renewed for 2 more years, until April 2028. This directive allows platforms to scan messages at their own discretion, as long as they’re not encrypted, looking for child sexual abuse material. That means major messaging apps like WhatsApp or Signal are exempt because they’re encrypted. However, unencrypted platforms like Instagram or Gmail are affected, and we should all be aware that anything we write online could potentially be scanned.
But hold on, I hate people who use or create this kind of content, I want them all locked up. So I’m in favor of Chat Control then.
Of course we all agree on that — people who create or distribute child sexual abuse material should, in my view, be locked up for life. But this approach isn’t effective, and it also sets a dangerous precedent. If this kind of scanning is allowed, anything can be scanned, as I mentioned in my post about South Korea’s new anti-fake-news law. Any government could use this to investigate whistleblowers or anyone else it finds inconvenient.
On top of that, it’s inefficient. Obviously, people who create this kind of content won’t be sharing it through Instagram or Gmail, because they know those channels aren’t secure. Another problem is that platforms are doing this scanning on their own, without any judicial order. In my opinion, it should be a judge who authorizes an investigation into these kinds of crimes. And there wasn’t even a majority to pass this law — it was actually renewed despite there being more votes against it than in favor.
That can’t be right, Goguma. If there were more votes against than in favor, it should have been rejected.
Well, here’s the thing — a legal loophole was used to push it through. Chat Control 1.0 had already been up for renewal twice before this week’s vote and was rejected both times because there were more votes against than in favor. But in this week’s vote on July 9, 2026, a procedural trick was used: without getting into the technical details, an urgent procedure was applied in second reading, which meant an absolute majority of “no” votes was required to reject it. The result of the vote wasn’t enough — there were 286 votes against, when 360 were needed — so the renewal couldn’t be stopped. On top of that, they timed it to coincide with the start of summer recess, so many MEPs weren’t at their posts because they’d extended their holidays, and those absences effectively counted as “yes” votes. This is a classic trick used by governments everywhere: pushing through unpopular laws right before the summer break or around Christmas, when people are most distracted. If it were up to me, I’d fire every single one of them — they’re paid to work from the first day to the last. But that’s a topic for another day. What’s really concerning is that there’s another piece of legislation on the horizon that could be much worse: Chat Control 2.0.
Chat Control 2.0? Is this like Windows versions, where they just keep rolling out updates?
This is the law that genuinely scares me, and it would mean the end of online privacy — in my opinion, we’d end up living in a scenario similar to what China has today. Basically, they’re proposing that the filtering happen directly on each device, which would effectively break every encrypted app out there. Signal, for example, has already said that if this passes, it wouldn’t be able to operate in Europe. This also ties into the broader push to end online anonymity, something already being attempted — for instance, in Spain, where accessing certain adult content sites was proposed to require scanning your ID, supposedly to keep minors from accessing that kind of content.
This is a bad idea for a few reasons. First, because it tramples on the right to privacy, which is fundamental in any democracy. Second, it’s not even effective — these crimes will unfortunately keep happening regardless; there will always be ways to create and share this kind of content, and this existed long before the internet did. On top of that, building a system to monitor or read content is an enormous security risk — if someone can access it, then with enough patience and budget, any government could gain access to that information too.
I’m scared by what you’re telling me. When will this be decided?
The plan is for this legislation to be debated and either approved or rejected sometime in the second half of this year. Several countries — Spain, France, and Italy, for example — are in favor, while others like Germany are against it. Roughly 15 countries support it and about 9 oppose it, with a few more still undecided. Polls show this is an unpopular measure, and a lot of people see it as a direct attack on privacy — myself included.
For those of you living in Europe, did you know about this? Do you think it’ll pass? Let me know in the comments.
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