Signal threatens to leave Europe if Chat Control is accepted (www.heise.de)

Signal’s president Meredith Whittaker has publicly threatened to pull the Signal app out of Europe if proposed EU “chat control” rules are adopted, arguing the measures would force a backdoor into end-to-end encryption (E2EE). The draft regulation aimed at combating child sexual abuse would require messengers to enable content inspection before encryption—essentially client-side scanning (CSS) that inspects every message. Whittaker says Signal will not undermine E2EE’s integrity, which protects privacy and safety for users worldwide, and warns that any built-in surveillance mechanism cannot be restricted to “only the good actors.” The European Parliament has largely opposed such measures, but the Council has shown support and the Danish presidency could shift momentum; Germany’s stance remains ambiguous. For the AI/ML community, the debate has direct technical and ethical implications. Client-side scanning would push content-moderation workloads onto client devices and models, creating universal access points that increase attack surface and weaken cryptographic guarantees—complicating trust assumptions for deployed ML systems. Whittaker also flagged emerging “AI agents” (autonomous assistants) that demand broad permissions across apps and services, calling on OS vendors (Microsoft, Google, Apple) to provide developer-level controls and opt-outs to limit overprivileged agents. The outcome will shape how ML-driven moderation, on-device models, and agent architectures balance efficacy, privacy, and security.