Sometimes the Guardian shows flashes of its old persona as a guardian of liberty. Publishing this article by Apostolis Fotiadis was one example:
The EU wants to scan every message sent in Europe. Will that really make us safer?
In my 20 years of being a reporter, I have rarely come across anything that feels so important – and yet so widely unnoticed. I’ve been following the attempt to create a Europe-wide apparatus that could lead to mass surveillance. The idea is for every digital platform – from Facebook to Signal, Snapchat and WhatsApp, to cloud and online gaming websites – to scan users’ communications.
This involves the use of technology that will essentially render the idea of encryption meaningless. The stated reason is to detect and report the sharing of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) on digital platforms and in their users’ private chats. But the implications for our privacy and security are staggering.
Since 2022, EU policymakers have attempted to push the legislation, called the regulation to prevent and combat child sexual abuse (better known as the CSAM regulation proposal), through. Similar attempts to introduce the tech in Britain via the online safety bill were abandoned at the 11th hour, with the UK government admitting it is not possible to scan users’ messages in this way without compromising their privacy.
Cybersecurity experts have already made their opinions clear. Rolling out the technology will introduce flaws that could undermine digital security. Researchers based at Imperial College London have shown systems that scan images en masse could be quietly tweaked to perform facial recognition on user devices without the user’s knowledge. They have warned there are probably more vulnerabilities in such technologies that have yet to be identified.
The title of this post referred to this story: “Britain’s biggest choir ditches Every Breath You Take over ‘abusive’ lyrics”
The song, which was written by Sting and released in 1983, is considered by some to be a stalkers’ anthem.
Sting has admitted that the words – “Every breath you take/ And every move you make/ Every bond you break/ Every step you take/ I’ll be watching you” – have “sinister” overtones.
Every time this sort of mass scanning of communications is advocated, I look for all the job vacancies for all the staff needed, and zilch, zero, nadda. There are literally *BILLIONS* of electronic communications PER DAY. It would need more people than exist to monitor them all. It can’t be done mechanically, because machines don’t think like humans, machines can’t understand human communications.
jgh,
It could be done automatically to a large degree. It couldn’t be done well automatically but it could be done. Having had adventures with HMGov IT of late I conclude it would be done terribly technically badly and at huge expense. I know the expense is not really the core issue here but it is a factor.
Natalie,
Oddly enough Sting is still raking in epic royalties for a sample from “Every Breath You Take” used by P Diddy. Possibly. Snopes has this as “unproven”.
@ jgh – of course you are right, and machines will not be able to accurately scan human communications, not today, and probably not for a long time yet.
But where you make your bloomer (in the words of P.G. Wodehouse) is your assumption that accurate scanning is the goal, or indeed, that the pinpoint discovery of CSAM is the desired result. Recent disclosures in the UK should persuade you that the PTB don’t give a toss about CSA. The goal here is social and political monitoring – the search for ‘wrongthink’. Of course, machine monitoring will be lousy at that as well – all sorts of false-positives, while the truly bad actors will sail under the radar as they do today – but since when were inaccuracy and ineffectiveness any sort of bar to government efforts? In some ways, these are a feature, not a bug, since the first efforts will fail even in their stated goals and the obviois answer will be that we must do more of the same! Telescreens are less than a decade away.
llater,
llamas
Of course I understand that Britain is no longer under the auspices of the EU, but it does seem to me ironic the contrast behind the European busybodies telling us we have to give up our right to privacy for the vitally important cause of preventing CSAM, while at the same time we see the British government totally ignoring, totally neglecting, the massive sexual abuse of children, many under the government’s direct care, in Rotherham and surrounding cities.
But of course anybody who has any familiarity with history and government knows that this law is nothing to do with CSAM. CSAM is just an excuse to allow the government to snoop into everything. In fact it is quite horrific that the government would use their utter failure to catch the scum who sexually abuse children as leverage to achieve their nefarious goals.
The Guardian is correct to be concerned about this European Union plan – and I never thought I would type those words.
Under the mask of fighting child pornography (which the establishment do not really care about), this is a blatantly political move – as Dr Schwab (World Economic Forum) is fond of saying “in the future there will be no privacy”, he says that as a GOOD thing – and he means for ordinary people (not for the ruling elite).
Like Jeremy Bentham, with his 13 Departments and his Prison-Work-House where people would be watched 24 hours a day, totally controlled, and without committing any crime (a little “detail” of the scheme that people often forget – someone could be sent to Bentham’s proposed prison without committing a crime), the establishment wish to control every detail of human life – because they do not regard humans as persons – they do not believe we are people, free will is an “illusion” according to the pet philosopher of the WEF.
It would be interesting to apply the doctrines of the elite to THEMSELVES – I think it would not be long before they begged for death.
I kinda like Opus’ version from “Bloom County”:
“Every leaf you rake, every herring you bake, I’ll be watching you…”
“Uh, Opus, Sting and the boys would like to have a word with you.”
It took them this long to notice?
I would rather my stalker be singing this song than creeping up on me silently. Speech is good.
Mr Sumner (Sting) is a very talented composer of pop songs, the Synchronicity album is mainly his compositions and it was one of the highlights of 1983 pop music. The previous work was often good. He did actually do an ‘apology’ song for EBYT in a subsequent solo album in 1985, the song ‘Love is the Seventh Wave‘ ends with the lines ‘Every cake you bake, every leg you break‘ which at the time he said was a self-mocking apology for the intensity of EBYT.
You have to be a special kind of totalitarian pompous prat to ditch EBYT.
Leaving aside the ravings of Hobbes, Priestly, Bentham and their modern day totalitarian necessitarian followers at the World Economic Forum (and other international bodies), to the song – boycott of.
To declare “Every Breath You Take” “abusive” is part of what Mr Musk calls the “Woke Mind Virus” – that weird “Critical Theory” Frankfurt School mutation of Marxism.
“Sting” is wealthy enough to tell these people to get lost – but he just rolls over and says what he is expected to say, it is disappointing.
By the way, in case anyone does not know, Joseph Priestly believed that everything was pre-planned by God – with humans not being beings (having no free will – none), basically puppets – raping and killing each other for the amusement of a being he, astonishingly, thought “good” – failing to see that a being that pre-programmed all the wicked deeds of the world (remember in Priestly’s system no one can choose to other than they do) would be EVIL – sickeningly evil.
Unsurprisingly Mr Priestly supported the French Revolution – which involved the murder of hundreds of thousands of people, mostly quite ordinary people in the Provinces.
A friend of mine tells me that there are people who choose “Every Breath You Take” as wedding music. I have to agree with her that that’s at least missing the point; the song seems to be in the same genre as the Who’s “I Can See for Miles.”
I don’t suppose that the choir ever had this Genesis classic from the 1980s in their repertoire.
(It’s no fun, being an) Illegal Alien . The video linked here is an absolute classic of the genre, some said it should have been the centre piece of this week’s Inauguration, but YMMV.
I think you’re giving them too much credit when you say they don’t care about child pornography.
“No, I mean they do not really care about fighting child pornography.”
Oh! Ok, then.
Why is there such enthusiasm for monitoring all messages under the guise of surveillance of possible child trafficking/pornographic material/abuse and such a lack of enthusiasm for prosecuting it when it actually occurs?
Back in the late 1970s the lead act at my University student union Christmas Party/Concert were Medicine Head (God bless them). The support was a local three-piece who despite looking the part were having trouble getting traction for their first couple of singles. However that was all about to change when Roxanne and Can’t Stand Losing You were both re-released the following year. The rest is history.
It was a good time to be growing up in Newcastle. Dire Straits also had to work hard to get noticed.
Fred,
Excellent point… Obviously, they will throw the book at you unless you’re an “ethnic” or “Too Big to Fail” in the BBC – Jimmy Savile, Huw Edwards…
“Every breath you take/ And every move you make/ Every bond you break/ Every step you take/ I’ll be watching you” is what I hum and sing to myself while watching my granddaughters. I also add “every thing you eat” and so forth depending on what they’re up to.
If I didn’t watch all that breathing, moving, breaking, stepping and eating they’d be falling or jumping off ledges, stairs, cliffs and playground equipment, eating rocks or doing God knows what else.
Lefties always assume the worst because they would always do the worst. If they watched a female intently and constantly they’d be planning some horror for her.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXRUhLdiirk