The government is now backing the controversial EU proposal known as “chat control”. The purpose of the bill is to prevent child abuse, but the proposal has been heavily criticized for giving authorities too much power to monitor people’s private conversations.
After the criticism, the content has been revised and is supported by all Swedish parties except the Center Party and the Sweden Democrats.
Journalist Emanuel Karlsten explains what the new proposal means in concrete terms. But to do that, he believes that you have to go back and look at the original proposal first.
– It is basically, if you want to make a metaphor over to an analog world, as if we had turned up cameras in everyone’s home in search of crime. It would have been an incredibly effective way of accessing this, but it would have been deeply infringing on privacy and we would never have accepted it at the time, he says in Nyhetsmorgon.
The criticism: Spyware
Emanuel Karlsten believes that the modified proposal is not very different from the first one.
– Basically, this means that you must basically break up all encryption, all types of letter secrets or whatever you want to call it, and monitor it in search of crime. Everyone is guilty until proven guilty, he says and continues:
– The difference is that you have to limit it to just images and moving material. It is not text and audio that should be searched. You also do not break encryption, but you should scan private individuals’ mobile phones, for example, before sending it. There is a criticism of not being able to break an encryption against things that are sent, but then they have solved it with a kind of spy program that is in the mobile and checks what you are about to send.
It’s happening with “chat control” now
In the new proposal to which the government has said yes, there are also opportunities for users to provide consent.
– Then there is the crux of the matter that you may not send any pictures or videos on the internet. So that’s the choice you have, says Emanuel Karlsten.
The proposal will now be prepared in the EU and then the Council of Ministers will negotiate with the newly elected EU Parliament.