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ETH Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin warns the EU\'s \"chat control\" plan will weaken cybersecurity
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin said that the EU (the region where the Ethereum network is located) and its restarted \"chat control\" plan will weaken cybersecurity for everyone. In a few days, members of the European Parliament will decide whether to resume message scanning.
Key Points
1. Members of the European Parliament voted 331 to 304 on Tuesday to quickly advance a new round of \"chat control\" resolution.
2. Opponents need to get 361 votes on Thursday to block the message scanning rule.
3. Butrin believes that mandatory scanning would undermine the encryption mechanisms that protect cryptocurrencies and Web3.
Chat controlled vote returns to parliament
Members of the European Parliament voted on Tuesday to restart the battle over message scanning, passing an emergency motion with 331 votes in favor, 304 against, with 11 abstentions. The procedural step itself did not resume scanning and only cleared the way for a substantive decision on Thursday.
Parliament will hold a binding vote on the last day before its summer recess, a day where attendance has historically been low. Because the document is in its second reading stage, opponents must obtain an absolute majority (361 votes) to block or modify it; any absence amounts to a yes vote. Critics have generally believed that the chances of successful stopping are slim.
EU privacy rules generally prohibit platforms from reading private chats without specific suspicion. A controversial exception that allowed Meta, Google and Microsoft to scan messages for child abuse material expired in April after being rejected by lawmakers in March by 311 votes against, 228 in favor, and 92 abstentions. Four European commissioners urged lawmakers to support the measure, warning otherwise most abusive material would not be detectable.
Butrin links scanning with cryptographic security
Butrin warned that forcing platforms to monitor private messages could undermine the security of everyone, not just suspected violators. He believes that large-scale surveillance data reserves can become a primary target for hackers and hostile governments, citing past cases where wiretapping data collected by one country was later stolen by another country.
Cryptocurrencies and Web3 systems rely on strong encryption to protect funds and user data, which is the same guarantee that encrypted messaging applications and self-managed wallets rely on. A separate mandatory scanning proposal (a permanent version of the rule) would even push providers to bypass end-to-end encryption for all users. Green Party negotiator Markeita Gregorova called the operation an abuse of process, accusing the largest parliamentary group of bringing back a proposal that had been rejected by lawmakers.
Butrin has long adhered to encryption stance
Butrin has issued similar warnings many times before. Last fall, he attacked an earlier version of the draft \"chat control\", warning that backdoors set up by investigators would inevitably be exploited by hackers and that a society could not become more secure by reducing the security of its own members.
This stance is consistent with his recent efforts to promote Ethereum to strengthen encryption. The \"slimming Ethereum\" roadmap he proposed this month includes anti-quantum proof and daily verifier anonymity, and weakening the encryption standard would go directly in this direction. It is alleged that even after the legal cover expired this spring, multiple platforms voluntarily continued to scan user messages.
