Evin Incir, 41, is one Swedish MEP. For a few weeks his official email account has been having some problems. “We receive hundreds of emails a day,” he explained to the newspaper Politico.eu. The body of the email may vary but the subject is always the same: stop the Chat Control proposal. The EU Council is preparing to vote on the Child Sexual Abuse Regulation (CSAR), a regulation that introduces control tools on platforms to limit crimes in the sphere of sexual abuse of minors.
At the basis of this regulation is the proposal that was called Chat Control: a tool, yet to be defined, to allow the police to also check chats covered by encryption for child pornography material. A proposal he received negative opinions: Leaving access to encrypted chats such as WhatsApp or Telegram can become a problem for privacy protection.
Joachim’s site for blocking Chat Control
The avalanche of emails to MEPs all comes from a single site. Joachima Danish software engineer, launched the portal Fight Chat Control. The operation is based on the concept of mail bombing: send repeated email packets to raise awareness of a cause. To participate, simply go to the site, select the country in which the parliamentarians you want to write to were elected and proceed with a few clicks. There is also a pre-compiled text which can be used as an email.
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Evidently the site is well trafficked. Joachim said that since it opened it has reached out 2.5 million contacts. A traffic that was not much appreciated by MEPs, given that it turned into thousands of emails to their email address.
Voting scheduled for October 14th has been removed
At the moment the Child Sexual Abuse Regulation (CSAR) it still seems far from approval. In recent hours, Germany has made it clear that it would not vote on the regulation as it is written. The minister Stefanie Hubig he explained: “The worst crimes do not justify giving up basic civil rights.” A vote by the EU Council was scheduled for Tuesday 14 October but at the moment it seems that the session has been removed from agendas.
