Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin criticised the EU’s proposed chat management regulations and warned that forced scans of private messages create critical security vulnerabilities.
The proposal, known as chat control regulations, enforces messaging platforms (even encrypted platforms).
Sponsored Sponsors
EU chat control regulations cause backlash
Buterin warned that such measures would erode the foundations of digital privacy, while surrounded by child protection. He argued that policies that argued that weakening individual security would make society safer would achieve the opposite outcome.
“We cannot make society safe by making people uneasy. We all deserve privacy and security without any hackable backdoors for our private communication,” writes Buterin.
Instead, Buterin argued that meaningful security reforms should focus on “common-sense policing” rather than blanket intercepting digital communications.
He added that essential data collection often creates new vulnerabilities as stored surveillance records can become a major target for hackers.
“There are many opportunities to improve safety today. We don’t re-inadvertently release criminals repeatedly, primarily common-sense policing improvements, while intercepted digital messages are security vulnerabilities, and there is a lot of eavesdropping data collected by one government and collected by another government.
The co-founder of Ethereum also emphasized that citizens should be offered the same privacy online that they once enjoyed in face-to-face interactions and cash transactions.
“The physical environment needs to be safe and the digital environment needs to be safe,” he added.
Sponsored Sponsors
Regulations to prevent and combat child sexual abuse (CSAR) are based on previous surveillance systems used by large technology companies for unencrypted data.
Meanwhile, the restrictions concerns grew after the 2024 report leaked. The document revealed that several cabinet members are seeking exemptions for intelligence reporting agencies, police and military staff.
With this in mind, Butaline and Privacy Advocates say they underscore the hypocrisy of lawmakers who impose oversight that these sculptures do not accept for themselves.
Pratam Rao, co-founder of blockchain security company Quillaudits, reflected this view. He said, “It is automatically dictatorship that lawmakers in the surveillance system are not exposed to themselves.”
“They acknowledge these systems as dangerous to privacy and democracy. They just don’t think citizens deserve the same protection as them,” Rao writes to X.
As a result, Butaline urged people in the European Union to oppose the controversial proposal. In particular, opposition to the proposal has gained momentum on social media platform X.
Data from advocacy group fightchatcontrol.eu shows that only seven EU member states, including Austria, Finland and the Netherlands, have officially rejected the plan.
Meanwhile, 12 people, including France, Spain and Denmark, have expressed support for controversial regulations, but some major countries, such as Germany and Italy, remain undecided.
