[Y-bar]

Multiple things can be true at the same time.

There can exist strong consumer protections against misuse of their personal data by various entities.

And there can simultaneously also exist governmental overreach against citizens private data.

The world is complex, few things are truly binary.

[BSDobelix]

But now you have governmental overreach and legalized spying on European Citizens by (mostly) US Companies, so i would say that Law is truly binary bad.

Also how the Law was forced is extremely bad.

But hey it's once more proof that the EU is not a democratically spirited institution.

[izacus]

Europe or EU has never looked at data protection against private companies and data protection against government as one and the same. Remember, that even GDPR has carveout for governmental use.

The americans did, but US isn't EU.

[shangofox]

Except it isn't "now" it was a thing since covid.

And it's not overreach it's kinda more of a loose exception to the GDPR which actually allows companies to read messages. Which they would already do without GDPR

[inigyou]

It still remains true that Mark Zuckerberg will get arrested if he is caught using the data for anything other than child porn scans.

[BSDobelix]

Your a dreamer, no one in that position will ever get arrested (in the West) slap on the hand, 100M and the thing is forgotten.

[okamiueru]

I am not sure if the absurdity of that statement is intentional, or a result of just how far the Overton window has drifted.

First of all, private companies shouldn't be given that responsibility to begin with. Meta in particular, has a long history of unethical and immoral usage of personal data. I won't use the term "illegal", as the question of legality becomes moot when punishment can be factored in as a cost of doing business [1]. Given the long list of things Meta has been caught doing, together with the in grand total zero seconds of jail time. I'm genuinely curious as to why you think this would be any different. I'd be surprised if it hasn't already happened, where in some room without windows and a lot of lawyers and business analysts, they have ran models and concluded that the cost of getting caught here is "a good financial decision". Wouldn't be surprised either if it also came with a guarantee of personal protection from prosecution, from NSA and other government entities, in exchange for a hand in that data pipe.

Secondly, for this to carry any plausibility for being motivated by "protect the children" arguments, it requires a minimal effort be enacted on more effective measures, and a measured balance with the cost this comes at. There are very good arguments for why this law would actively harm children. Throw in some Bayesian understanding, and you better have a state of the art system that somehow pretty much never has false positives, nor false negatives, where this was also the only way to detect and avoid said abuse. I don't know the numbers here, but I highly doubt this is a good idea, even with infinite generosity as to good intentions. We've all been children, we've all done stupid things. Now throw in the brilliant and surely-not-to-scar-a-child-for-life situations where parents and strangers looking at something they thought was private, and have a "grown up discussion" about. I shiver at the thought.

Thirdly, and aside from directly harming children in situations where they selves use technology and naively, and unwisely share pictures, consider how many take pictures of their own kids without clothes, because they are normal human beings, who do not consider there to be anything sexual about said depiction. You want to throw law enforcement in the mix here? Child protective services?

Fourthly, consider the possible negative for this abuse. If normal behavior (e.g. children being children, and e.g. normal parents otherwise sharing normal pictures if you are a normal person) can be selectively chosen as being a heinous crime, this should scare anyone, especially consider the political shifting trends towards fascism.

[1]: https://www.creativefuture.org/facebook-scandal-timeline/

[inigyou]

Western Europe is a place where the political structures, for better or worse (mainly worse) still trust people to follow the law. Much EU politics makes more sense with this in mind. They consider a law saying "you may only use this capability to scan for child porn" to be a barrier against other uses, the same way they consider a law saying "you must get the user's consent before setting a tracking cookie" to prevent anyone from setting a tracking cookie without consent. They don't feel a need for hard fences like "chat must be encrypted" or "browsers must disable cookies on every website by default" because they consider the soft law to be an adequate solution.

[BSDobelix]

>I won't use the term "illegal", as the question of legality becomes moot when punishment can be factored in as a cost of doing business.

Woah, that's such a good, on point statement. From Boing, FightClub (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0137523/quotes/?item=qt0479130) to Cambridge Analytica (Meta) and Pegasus as a small sample ;)

[throw-the-towel]

Yeah, I'm not bating my breath for the Silicon Valley Invasion Act.

[ibejoeb]

There can be, but this isn't it. In the EU, a company can't send you an email, but it can read your email.

[joenot443]

In this case, the phrase “consumer protections” is almost insulting when the things it’s supposedly protecting us from are a triviality compared to the horror show being introduced.

[phendrenad2]

There will surely be some people who applaud your post for pointing this out. But the vast majority of people don't see "government spies on me" vs "private industry spies on me" as a meaningful distinction and there are MANY MANY recent examples of this: the discourse around Flock, the discourse around ICE using personal information to trace dissenters, the discourse around DOGE and Palantir.

But I suppose the OP said all that needs to be said, and so this spot was left empty for whatever nonsense comment dared to fill the void, and you won.

[Y-bar]

I see a significant distinction between these two things. And I see chat control as a significant intrusion in my personal life.

Laws and democracy is a constant fight, no democracy was complete and perfect the day it was announced.

We lost a battle now. And unlike people like you who only resort to insults I am not willing to give up just because of this setback. I will continue to fight for these rights.

[phendrenad2]

I think we're actually arguing for the same goal here, and I was a bit too harsh, but really, there's a big danger in settling on a technicality while thinking you're "fighting the good fight". The powers that be will throw all kinds of technicality wins in front of you, the key is knowing when it's a false victory.

[3997531578]

No, "strong digital privacy" and "governmental overreach against citizens private data" is mutually exclusive.

[yorwba]

They're strong protections relative to most other jurisdictions, where there is no need to pass laws exceptionally allowing certain uses of private data, since such uses were never forbidden and sometimes are mandatory beyond what Chat Control 2.0 would mandate.