00:00Chat Control 1.0, a temporary derogation from e-privacy rules designed to detect online child
00:07sexual abuse, was adopted by the European Parliament a few days ago. Ever since, the
00:13discussion about it remains heated. The controversy around Chat Control 1.0 is not primarily about its
00:20objective, fighting sexual abuse of children online, but about how it does so and what it
00:26means for privacy, encryption and democratic oversight. To learn more, I'm now lucky enough
00:32to have Simeon de Brauwe by my side. He's a digital policy advisor at the European Digital Rights
00:37Network, Idri. Good morning and thanks for making time for us. So, your organization basically says
00:46Chat Control threatens fundamental rights, but your critics say you're putting privacy ahead of
00:54children's safety. Are they wrong? Yes, they are wrong because we're not putting it ahead,
00:59we're putting it together. There is a way to address this problem without doing mass surveillance
01:04and without undermining everyone's privacy and other fundamental rights and this is what we're
01:09putting forward, proportionality. And where do you draw the line between protecting privacy and
01:14protecting children? Well, if you cannot, if you can do both at the same time, that's the line that
01:20you need to draw. And in the chat control, the big issue is mass surveillance, that is turning
01:29inquiry into a phishing net. Mass surveillance means treating everyone as a suspect instead of
01:35looking for actual clues, actual suspects. If you reject chat control, what could be the alternative?
01:46This is what the parliament itself is pushing. It's a way of doing scanning of communications,
01:53which is not undermining encryption and not mass surveillance. It is targeted scanning. And we can
02:02do this without turning everyone into a suspect. Of course, the solution is not in technology alone.
02:09We need also measures that are societal and we need work with police. This is not really being done
02:16right now. For example, the police doesn't take down online material. This is a big issue.
02:21All right. Simon de Balver from European Digital Rights. Thank you so much for coming on the show
02:26this morning.
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