Signal President Criticizes Revised EU Proposal Aimed at Monitoring Encrypted Chats

According to Odaily, Meredith Whittaker, the president of instant messaging application Signal, has strongly criticized a revised proposal by the European Union aimed at monitoring encrypted chats under a 'new guise'. The European Commission first introduced the 'Chat Control Act' in mid-2022, attempting to enforce some rules that would effectively compel instant messaging applications to create backdoors for end-to-end encrypted messages. In November of the previous year, the European Parliament Committee voted against mass screening of encrypted telecommunications. However, a revised draft law is seeking an alternative method for mass scanning, termed 'upload moderation', to combat online child sexual abuse content. In a statement on June 17, Whittaker argued that the 'upload moderation' label is just another strategy to 'undermine encryption', which would make private chats more susceptible to exploitation by hackers and hostile nations.