Privacy

41354 readers

941 users here now

A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

Some Rules

Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn't great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
Don't promote proprietary software
Try to keep things on topic
If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
Be nice :)

Related communities

much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

247

Why are so many European countries getting worried about encryption and/or age verification? Why now? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 2 days ago by zdhzm2pgp@lemmy.ml to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

130 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I can understand why governments would push for something like this after 9/11, though it of course goes without saying that this is a totally unacceptable violation of someone's basic rights. It also goes without saying that governments always want more control over their citizens, but what exactly are they so worried might happen, right now, in 2025 or the near future?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] RoombaRehab@sh.itjust.works 23 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Centralization tends be self-reinforcing. Social unrest might cause the public to demand more safety measures, which usually come at the expense of freedoms. I’d also wager that the lower the level of trust in government is, the more they want to impose control and authority.

And in the EU specifically it is because lobbyists have been working overtime to try and pass chat control: https://borncity.com/win/2023/09/27/european-union-which-lobby-organizations-are-behind-the-plans-for-chat-control/

[–] ell1e@leminal.space 12 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

If you didn't know, it seems like the EU has actually announced a copy of the UK Online Safety Act for 2026 too, as far as I can tell: https://leminal.space/post/25089051/17854998