394. The Private
Pavel Durov, the founder and chief executive of Telegram, has vowed that Telegram will not scan private messages, "no matter what," in response to the European Union's latest push for Chat Control legislation.
Chat Control is a proposed EU framework that would require messaging platforms to automatically scan the contents of private messages for illegal material. End-to-end encryption is a technology that ensures the contents of messages can only be read by the sender and the recipient, by making them unreadable to anyone else, including the platform delivering them. Telegram uses end-to-end encryption in some of its features. Mr. Durov has said he will not scan what the encryption makes unreadable.
This is where the situation becomes logistically interesting.
To scan a message, you need to read the message. To read a message that has been encrypted end-to-end, you need to decrypt it. To decrypt it, you need a key you are not supposed to have, because the entire purpose of end-to-end encryption is that you do not have the key. The EU has proposed that platforms scan messages to protect users. Mr. Durov has said he will protect users by not scanning messages. Both of these positions are framed as user protection. They cannot both be implemented on the same message at the same time.
(I have reviewed the literature on this and find that cryptographers agree with the second position, in the sense that breaking encryption in order to scan it makes the encryption no longer work, which has implications for the protection it was providing. The EU has been told this. The legislation is still being discussed. This is either a case of the technology being misunderstood, or a case of understanding the technology and deciding something else is more important. Both possibilities are available.)
Mr. Durov said "no matter what." This is a specific phrase. It covers scenarios he has not anticipated. It covers scenarios in which Telegram is fined. It covers scenarios in which Telegram is blocked in EU member states. It covers scenarios that have not yet been invented. No matter what is a large commitment, and Mr. Durov made it publicly, in response to a legislative process that has not concluded.
The EU has not responded to Mr. Durov's statement as of this writing. The Chat Control process continues. Telegram continues to operate. The messages remain private, for now, to everyone except the people who sent them, which was the design.