Comment by 8fingerlouie
2 days ago
They have removed the backdoor paragraph, and inserted a new one that states that scanning is entirely voluntary and best effort, and also state that the EU cannot force them to scan.
As far as the mass surveillance scanning goes, it has completely been removed, and what remains is still the mandatory age checks, which might be problematic.
From reading the specification, it appears to be reasonably well designed, where identification is handled by authorities, and the requesting party cannot get your identification details, only send an "is the user of this session older than 18". The verifier cannot see which site the request comes from, and you identify yourself in the session, and a reply goes back to the requester with a "yes/no" answer.
So, it at least appears to be simply an age check, and not some sort of surveillance program to stalk your online browsing habits.
The age check is already present in France, since I think a month? I will probably test it soon to see how inconvenient/insecure it is, but from what I read it seems to be well designed for privacy.
Problem is that once you've gotten this thing through to begin with it's comparatively easy to make slight amendments later, also of course with the justification of "protecting the children".
More like: Authorities will look more closely at those who don't scan, so you'll be harassed until you comply. E.g. just like how many authorities consider using a VPN === user is doing something criminal.