Hungary is urgently trying to break the communication secret – “Does Finland want trackers on phones?”

Citizens communication between the two countries will be monitored more closely in the future than at present, if Hungary, which holds the EU presidency, gets its way.

The background is the so-called CSAM regulation dealing with the prevention of sexual abuse of children on the Internet. According to media reports, Hungary wants to add a backdoor to the regulation, based on which a tracker would have to be installed on phones or software in the EU, which could be used to prevent the transmission of prohibited material in advance.

Those opposed to the Hungarian proposal fear that, especially in authoritarian states, trackers could be used for other purposes of monitoring citizens, citing the need to protect children against various pedophiles. By invoking the regulation, it might be possible to intrude to examine, for example, the files of political opponents.

In dispute is essentially a question of privacy in private communications.

Nowadays, digital communication is encrypted in many services so that the secret of the communication is preserved. This is considered one of the key privacy protections in rule-of-law states.

This principle may now be at risk due to the changes proposed by Hungary.

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Hungary is proposing to the EU member states that a scanner be installed on popular messaging services such as Whatsapp, Signal and Telegram, which would investigate whether content containing sexual abuse of children has been downloaded to the devices. That’s about it told the Dutch broadcasting company NOS.

As you know, starting the scanning of files from suspects would require that the court would first have to ask for permission to start monitoring.

MEP Aura Sallan According to (kok), Hungary is pushing ahead with the change in the regulations in a hurry.

“According to the rumor, the prime minister is involved Viktor Orbán myself”, says Salla by phone. “He now sees this as an opportunity to gain state control over messaging servers.”

Hungarian the presentation includes, according to various sources, a proposal that phones or their applications should have trackers. If a person is suspected of sending child pornography, the device would activate and prevent the material from being sent.

In practice, this would mean that an outside party would have access to the phones even before a signal, i.e. a message, is sent from the phone, says Salla.

“This would also enable criminals to easily access the devices. A gruesome example of what this could accomplish can be seen in the explosions of paging devices in the Middle East,” Salla explains the problem.

Salla also criticized the idea in the proposal that the regulation could regulate something about the introduction of a technology that has not yet been developed.

“You can’t make legislation out of something that doesn’t even exist yet.”

Salla has previously worked at the Meta company as a director responsible for EU affairs. Meta owns, among other things, Whatsapp.

Parliamentary the large committee outlined in the spring that the encryption of private telecommunications must be kept end-to-end protected from sender to receiver.

At the time, it did not take a position on whether the EU could require trackers to be installed on phones or their applications, because such a proposal did not exist at the time.

Now the Council, i.e. the EU member states, form their own position on the subject before the tripartite negotiations between the Commission, the Parliament and the Council.

Hungary is reportedly going to take its presentation to the ambassadorial level (Coreper) on October 10, without Hungary’s compromise proposal having the support of the majority at the working group level of the EU machinery, Salla says.

Finland voted against Hungary’s proposal in the working group level negotiations of the EU member states.

Allowed according to the Minister of the Interior From Mari Ranta (ps) replacement Minister of Transport, Communications and the Interior Lulu Wrist (ps) plays a key role in what kind of position Finland takes on tracking devices installed on devices.

“Finland, together with the Netherlands and a few other member states, can be a key factor in whether Orbán gets this forward.”

According to Salla, as the responsible minister, Rante basically has the power to decide Finland’s position.

“But when the presentation changes so much, it would be good practice to recycle the matter to a large committee. This way we would get a democratic position on whether Finland wants trackers on phones.”

Helsinki Sanomat failed to get Minister Rannett to comment on the matter.

On behalf of the Ministry of the Interior, however, it was stated that Finland’s position on Hungary’s new compromise proposal is likely to be outlined during the deliberations of the EU Ministerial Committee and later the Grand Committee on Friday, October 4.

“In general, it can be stated that the EU presidency of Hungary is striving for the Council’s general vision with a presentation that would be more limited in scope and, for example, more accurate in identifying illegal material. The proposal must adequately respond to the observations and boundary conditions raised by the Government and also the Parliament. In our evaluation work, we also take into account the guidelines of the government program in relation to this issue,” the Ministry of the Interior replied by email.