Open letter: Mass surveillance and undermining encryption still on table in EU Council

Today, 17 April, EDRi in a coalition of 50* civil society organisations and 26 individual experts, call on Member State representatives not to agree to the proposed EU Council position on the Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) Regulation whilst so many critical issues remain.

The fundamental flaws of the Commission’s draft law and previous Council texts – including of mass surveillance and serious threats to encryption – have not been resolved by the latest texts from the Belgian Presidency.

In the course of this EU legislative proposal, major concerns have been raised by thousands of experts across human rights law, cybersecurity, children’s (digital) rights, child protection hotlines, police forces, data protection and more. These concerns have been listened to by governments including of Germany, Poland, France, Austria, the Netherlands, Estonia and Finland, who have all reportedly taken a stand against various of the proposal’s major legal and technical flaws. However, we warn that these critical issues are still very much present in the new approach.

The EU Council’s latest attempt at consensus must be rejected. This is a question of upholding the essence of rights to privacy, data protection, free expression and the presumption of innocence of people across the EU and beyond.

* Please note that the original total of 48 signatures has been updated since the initial publication of this letter.