- The signal has affirmed that EU’s ‘chat’ control legislation is comparable to malware
- It is also considering leaving Europe if the bill was approved
- Chat control is back at the legislators table on October 14
Safe secure application of circus message said that the EU proposal to scan all private messages of citizens would work as selected spyware.
What has been nicknamed by his critics, chat control, is the response of the European Commission to Child Safety online. According to the latest iteration of the text, all messaging platforms that operate in the EU would be forced to scan all URLs, images and videos shared by their users in the search for child sexual abuse material (CSAM).
This mandatory scan is expected to occur directly on the device and, in the case of encrypted applications, before the messages are encrypted. A requirement that, according to Signal, it cannot be compatible with how encryption works.
“In addition to the legal part, this is exactly how malware works. Committing its device to obtain access to information,” said Vice President of Global Affairs of Signal, UDBHAV Tiwari.
“In a nutshell, the idea that a device will scan content before it is encrypted for us to deny the very purpose of the encryption.”
First presented in 2022, the EU has never been closer to accepting the proposal for the regulation of child sexual abuse (CSAR), with a crucial meeting scheduled for October 14.
The signal could leave Europe
The signal has repeatedly said that if the requirement to create a rear encryption door became law, the company I would prefer to leave that market than weaken encryption. A position that Meredith Whittaker, president of the Foundation of Signal without profit, behind the encrypted service, recently reiterated to a German media.
Speaking during an online event organized by the European Verdes Party, Tiwari also confirmed that there are no plans to “make two versions of Signal”. One that makes scan on the client side and another that does not.
“For the signal, this is an existential catastrophic risk to provide our services in the European Union. It would denicate the main promises to our users, and I think it is a risk that many people will face,” he said.
Signal and other experts have argued for a long time that the client’s side would break encryption protection, which is used by the best VPN and other encrypted applications to protect their unauthorized access data. Ultimately, this will also create a vulnerable end point that malicious actors can also explode.
Germany: the decisive factor
Before a crucial Chat control meeting scheduled for October 14, Germany is still a decisive vote. However, the government continues to send mixed messages.
Germany is among the countries that have been changing their positions before the important day, in fact. After joining the countries that oppose the mandatory chat scan in September, the nation is now among the undecided countries again, according to the latest data.
This is why Whittaker urges German citizens to “let German politicians know how harmful, counterproductive and self-sabotage would be their reversal.”
📣 Germany is close to reverse its opposition of principles to mass surveillance and the scan of private messages, and support the chat control invoice. This could end private, and sign, in the EU.TIME is short and have the darkness: please, that German politicians know how … https://t.co/jkonhcugisOctober 6, 2025
The signal is certainly not alone to feel this way. Cryptographers, technologists, digital rights experts and even some politicians have long warned against the implications that such scan of all confidential chats of all citizens will have for their privacy and security.
Some European government agencies, including those of Sweden and the Netherlands, have also considered the deployment of the so -called client side scan on all devices an unacceptable risk of cyber security for national security. The protest pushed chat control legislators to add a provision excluding all military governments and accounts. Obviously, however, the risk is worth all of us.
According to Tiwari, continuing to press for mandatory scan regardless of risks is ultimately a “slippery slope with global consequences.” What will begin with CSAM’s scan could be extended to terrorism, intellectual properties and, who knows, what else. A capacity that could also give a new and more disruptive form for authoritarian governments to restrict the rights of their citizens.
“There are global consequences to develop these technological abilities. We should go back very strongly because if that ends up being implemented, we would have crossed a threshold from which I do not think we can return as a society.”
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