When 'Think of the Children' Becomes 'Think of the State'
Been following this whole Chat Control saga in Europe lately, and honestly, it’s got me pretty wound up. The latest news about Denmark pushing hard for mass surveillance of our digital communications under the banner of “protecting children” has me reaching for my second latte of the day – and not in a good way.
Don’t get me wrong, protecting kids from abuse is absolutely crucial. But when I see politicians exempting themselves from the very surveillance they’re imposing on the rest of us, alarm bells start ringing louder than a Melbourne tram at peak hour. The irony becomes even more bitter when you learn that a Danish politician was recently charged with possessing thousands of CSAM images while simultaneously advocating for these intrusive measures. The hypocrisy is staggering.
What really gets under my skin is how this whole debate mirrors patterns we’ve seen throughout history. Someone mentioned Frank Zappa’s quote about the illusion of freedom, and mate, that hit home. We’re watching the curtains being pulled back in real time. First, it’s “scan everyone’s messages to catch predators.” Tomorrow, it’ll be “scan everyone’s messages to catch terrorists.” Next week? “Scan everyone’s messages to catch people who disagree with government policy.”
The technical side of me knows how slippery this slope really is. Once you build the infrastructure for mass surveillance, it doesn’t just sit there collecting digital dust. Governments always find new ways to use these tools, and they rarely scale back. We’ve seen it with anti-terrorism legislation that somehow ends up being used for tax evasion cases. We’ve seen it with COVID tracking apps that governments were suspiciously reluctant to shut down.
What frustrates me most is the false choice being presented here. We’re told we can either have privacy or child safety, but never both. That’s bollocks, frankly. There are targeted approaches that don’t require scanning every citizen’s private communications. There are ways to go after actual predators without treating every parent sending bath photos to grandparents like a potential criminal.
The really scary bit is how this plays into broader authoritarian trends globally. When politicians start talking about “system compliance scores” and demanding not just silence but active participation in surveillance culture, we’re heading into some pretty dark territory. The fact that Viktor Orban – hardly a champion of democratic values – is enthusiastically supporting Chat Control should give everyone pause.
Yet here in Australia, I wonder how many people are paying attention. We’ve got our own issues with government overreach in the digital space, and the lessons from Europe should be a wake-up call. The Assistance and Access Act already gave our agencies unprecedented powers to access encrypted communications. How long before we see similar “think of the children” justifications for even broader surveillance?
There’s still hope though. The European Court of Human Rights has blocked similar measures twice before, and GDPR protections might yet prove to be the stumbling block that kills this proposal. Germany’s recent moves to limit mass surveillance show that not everyone in Europe has lost their minds. Sometimes the system works, even when politicians would rather it didn’t.
But we can’t just sit back and hope the courts will save us. This stuff requires active resistance from citizens who value their privacy and understand what’s at stake. Ring your local members, support digital rights organizations, and don’t let the “but think of the children” rhetoric shut down legitimate concerns about government overreach.
Because at the end of the day, a society that surveils all its citizens in the name of protecting some of them isn’t really protecting anyone. It’s just building the infrastructure for oppression, one well-intentioned step at a time.
The question isn’t whether we care about protecting children – of course we do. The question is whether we’re willing to sacrifice everyone’s fundamental rights in pursuit of a false sense of security that history tells us never actually delivers what it promises.