Opposition to "Chat Control"

Veilid Foundation stands opposed to the misguided attempt by the EU to erode personal privacy with their “Chat Control” legislation.

If this legislation becomes law in its current form, we will be forced to not release our chat apps in the EU app stores. Of course, our project is entirely open source, which means anyone could compile the app still and utilize the underlying framework and protocol, and we would have no control over that.

This pressure has two effects:

1. Uncontrolled apps could be distributed utilizing our framework that have no guarantees of what is in the code you install. This will diminish security for users.
2. Since the application will not be generally available to a controlled environment, abuse of the protocol will be more likely due to determined bad actors being the primary regional user base.

At Veilid, we believe, much like the EU professes, that privacy is a human right. Erosion of these rights is a looming danger to all.

If this legislation becomes law, we will not release future apps, nor will we endorse the release of apps built upon Veilid Framework within the EU’s borders.

We can do this without harm to our foundation or the framework because our work is not monetized in any way other than donations and fundraisers.

However, we will be disappointed that we could not help to enshrine privacy as a human right in the region due to shortsighted attempts by policy makers more concerned with the elimination of human rights than the safety and liberty of all.

As always, we fight for the user.