My newest article Digital Privacy vs. Child Protection: The EU’s Controversial Chat Control Initiative for Stankevicius, explores Chat Control, the Brussels Effect, using Neil Stephenson’s Spew as a framing element.
“So, a week later I’m still wondering how I got this job: patrolman on the information highway. We don’t call it that, of course, the job title is Profile Auditor 1. But if the Spew is a highway, imagine a hard-jawed, close-shaven buck lurking in the shade of an overpass, your license plate reflected in the quicksilver pools of his shades as you whoosh past. Key difference: we never bust anyone, we just like to watch.” (Stephenson, N. (1994, October 1). Spew.)
The European Union’s proposed Regulation to Prevent and Combat Child Sexual Abuse, known as “Chat Control,” is built upon precisely this premise of permanent watching. Its central tool is mandatory client-side scanning of all private communications: messages, images, and files inspected on a user’s device before they are encrypted (European Commission, 2022). Unlike targeted investigations, this is systematic and indiscriminate monitoring.
Cowin, J. (2025, August 18). Digital privacy vs. child protection: The EU’s controversial Chat Control initiative. Stankevicius. https://stankevicius.co/artificial-intelligence/digital-privacy-vs-child-protection-the-eus-controversial-chat-control-initiative/
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