Procedural tactics used to revive ChatControl, MEP claims
Mary Khan, an MEP for Alternative for Germany (AfD), has accused the European Commission of taking persistent steps to circumvent opposition to comprehensive surveillance of social media users’ private messages. She said the authorities in Brussels were attempting to return the proposal to the legislative agenda despite its earlier rejection.
The European Parliament rejected the proposed ChatControl legislation in March. According to Khan, however, the European Commission has now reintroduced essentially the same initiative under the banner of protecting children.
“Although the European Parliament already rejected ChatControl in March, they are now using procedural tricks to drag this dead project for total surveillance back on to the agenda,” Khan said.
In an address to the European Parliament, she criticised what she described as the European Commission’s provocative tactics:
“In this August house of democracy, it seems that we vote until the result is satisfactory. Summer, sunshine, mass surveillance – this is apparently how some EU elites imagine the start of the summer holidays. A surveillance framework has to be rushed through just before the recess, even though parliament has already rejected chat control. Now they are reheating the same proposal.”
Private messages could be made searchable
Khan said permanent monitoring of private chats had no majority in the European Parliament, prompting supporters of the surveillance scheme to try to introduce it through the back door. She argued that the initiative was being advanced gradually through what she called “salami tactics”.
“And all of you know perfectly well that there is no majority for permanent chat control. That is why they are now trying, together with the Council, to revive the whole thing through the back door. Once again, as so often happens, they have chosen salami tactics. In practical terms, that means private messages must be made technically searchable, while images, videos and even texts must be checked automatically,” she added.
According to Khan, the role of European Commission President illustrates the underlying purpose of the project. Ursula von der Leyen presumably refuses to publish her own correspondence.
“Since 2021, Ursula von der Leyen has been trying to gain access to our private messages. Yet she cannot disclose her own text messages. And everyone knows what was happening on our continent in 2021 during the coronavirus measures,” Khan said, drawing applause from fellow MEPs.
Child protection argument criticised
Khan was particularly critical of the use of child protection as justification for mass surveillance. Speaking as a mother, she said genuine efforts to protect children had nothing to do with placing every citizen under general suspicion.
“And, of course, that argument does not work. I am a mother myself, and naturally we all want to protect children, but genuine child protection does not begin by treating every citizen as a suspect. It begins where real criminals pose a danger with tough sentences instead of suspended ones. We need public registers of offenders, better criminal prosecution and the dismantling of grooming gangs. Anyone who treats paedophiles with kid gloves while seeking to place millions of people under general suspicion is deliberately setting the wrong priorities,” she claimed.
Khan urged citizens to watch closely how their representatives vote and to remember the names of MEPs who support making private correspondence searchable.
She concluded: “ChatControl is mass surveillance, and we will continue to fight it.”
