EU’s Chat Control Law

EU’s Chat Control Law

Context: The European Union’s proposed Chat Control law, aimed at combating child sexual abuse online, has sparked intense debate among member states about privacy and potential misuse.

• The law includes provisions for mass scanning of private messages and breaking end-to-end encryption. Critics argue that scanning creates risky backdoors, compromising the security by exposing it to exploitation by malicious third parties.                                                                                           • Also, the scanning technology could be misused by authoritarian regimes to target dissidents.
• The revised draft limits scanning to images, videos, and URLs, excluding text and audio messages.
• Another change requires user consent for scanning, but a refusal would block multimedia sharing, making the “choice” effectively illusory.

What is Encryption?

• Encryption is the process of converting readable information into an unreadable format using specific rules. These rules, or encryption algorithms, use keys to lock and unlock the information.
• E.g. with a key “kite,” the algorithm encrypts “ice cream” into “AdNgzrrtxcpeUzzAdN7dwA==”. If a different key, like “motorcycle,” is used, the encrypted text becomes entirely different.
• The key acts like a password. A computer can decrypt the scrambled text (ciphertext) only if it has the correct key and knows the encryption rules used.

End-to-End (E2E) Encryption

• E2E encryption refers to a method where data is encrypted from the point of origin to its final destination. This ensures that the information remains protected throughout its entire journey.
• Encryption-in-transit protects data while it’s being transmitted between your device and the server.
• E2E encryption protects data both during transmission and when it’s stored on servers, only decrypting it when the intended recipient receives the message.
• In symmetric encryption, the same key is used for both encrypting and decrypting the information.
• Asymmetric encryption uses different keys for encryption and decryption, offering additional security