Eurobloat #0193 • May 2026

May was the month Brussels pressed on with reading your private messages, postponed its proudest law because it could not switch it on, and then asked the member states for a great deal more money. Folly of the Month: the plan to read everyone's messages On 11 May the fourth round of talks on the Chat Control proposal took place, with a fifth and final round set for the end of June. The Council still wants mandatory age checks for messaging services, which in plain terms means proving who you are, by document or by face scan, before you may send a private message. It still leans on scanning installed on your own device, which breaks the protection that end-to-end encryption is supposed to give. The whole thing is sold as a way to protect children, yet the method on offer is to watch everyone, all the time, and to end anonymous communication for the innocent and guilty alike. A union that cannot run its own laws would now like to read your post before you send it. → patrick-breyer.de…