European civil servants are being forced off WhatsApp

aaa_is_op about 3 hours ago 35 commentsRead Article on politico.eu

DE version is available. Content is displayed in original English for accuracy.

⚡ Community Insights

Discussion Sentiment

36% Positive

Analyzed from 1035 words in the discussion.

Discussion (35 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

throwa356262•about 2 hours ago

Governments want to move away from “platforms over which we have no control,” says Dutch minister.

Sure, that is fair enough. But why is EU not setting up their own servers for whisper or activity pub or whatever OSS protocols and just make that their only official and approved communication channel?

llacane•about 1 hour ago

Actually European Commission has been on its own Mastodon server for a couple years:

https://ec.social-network.europa.eu/public/local

galbar•about 2 hours ago

It is my understanding that a lot of EU governments are setting up their own matrix servers.

Arathorn•about 1 hour ago

This is true. We just published a map of it: https://element.io/en/matrix-in-europe

polski-g•19 minutes ago

They're setting up matrix servers. Nato uses matrix.

Too bad the UX is dogshit and the end users lose their keys every 90 days. Even though they're explicitly warned, loudly and clearly, to not lose the keys.

Matrix software stack isn't idiot proof; Signal is.

p2detar•about 1 hour ago

I'd really want to see more examples of https://social.bund.de

This is the Mastodon server of the German Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information (BfDI). Embrace decentralization.

p4bl0•18 minutes ago

Here is one of the French government: https://social.numerique.gouv.fr/

dotcoma•about 1 hour ago

It’s just common sense.

iririririr•42 minutes ago

You'd think right? But most of south american and southeast asia political scandals were cause by political figures using whatsapp and messages "leaking" thanks to a "hacker".

hackerbeat•about 2 hours ago

Good. The US is gone.

marssaxman•about 1 hour ago

Digital sovereignty would always have been a good idea, regardless of the present insanity.

spwa4•about 2 hours ago

The problem with these efforts is always the same: organizations make their own messenger, and the fact that these organizations then have control over their own messenger ... means their employees won't use it. And that's ignoring that you can bet your firstborn they cut corners developing these messengers, so they're not pleasant to use to boot. In 2026 you still hear complaints of government employees that they only have 200 mb of mailbox space ... sigh

People "don't trust" in the very abstract sense, Mark Zuckerberg. But in a very real sense they don't trust their manager at all, and they know their own manager can see their messages on the "sovereign" messenger. Zuckerberg wants to sell them stuff they don't want on occasion. Their manager ... well they're cheating their manager.

Oh and it doesn't even buy extra security: the platform owners can spy directly through hardware backdoors, they can "update" any app on the phone, and they have the root keys to the secure element, and so it isn't secure to them. And if you look under the covers ... the backend is on AWS? No? Must be on Azure then.

So annoying lots of people, reducing functionality, for no actual security.

Sure sounds like EU governments are behind this ...

9dev•41 minutes ago

That doesn’t really apply in the EU, because your manager or even your org don’t have any right to read your messages, that would constitute a crime actually.

I suspect the reason would be far simpler - people use what they are used to, and WhatsApp is the de-facto standard Messenger app all over Europe.

pjc50•about 1 hour ago

> the fact that these organizations then have control over their own messenger ... means their employees won't use it.

Not sure what you mean here; I happily use whatever work email and messenger systems are provided for work. Most people do. I don't actually mind that IT services have access; they are in any case covered by GDPR.

In some cases there has been a legal crackdown on back channels: https://www.ft.com/content/68c26cf6-52d5-11e3-a73e-00144feab...

The Boris Johnson problem remains, but it can at least be made against the rules for normal work purposes.

(Remember not to type crimes into a computer, people)

elcritch•24 minutes ago

> (Remember not to type crimes into a computer, people)

Please ignore that. It’s daft talk. Definitely record your abuses of power.

JumpCrisscross•about 2 hours ago

> organizations make their own messenger, and the fact that these organizations then have control over their own messenger ... means their employees won't use it

Legally mandate its use for official communications.

subscribed•about 1 hour ago

And they'll keep doing what Boris Johnson was doing when in power: https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/boris-johnson-covid...

They'll do it anyway.

WhatIsDukkha•about 1 hour ago

This is helpful because it makes the criminality stand out.

Because, yes, in democracies we have public records laws.

spwa4•about 2 hours ago

So the managers also demand their employees don't use it you mean? Because then it can be used against them in court? (cfr. email "retention policies" legal departments demand these days?)

gretch•about 2 hours ago

I've always found it ironic that people who distrust software from Mark Zuckerberg instead trust software from... 3 guys in a garage.

"Those 3 guys in a garage would never sell us out! They are paragons of virtue!"

parrellel•about 1 hour ago

We shall trust 27 different sets of 3 to 10 guys in garages and ensure they never become large enough to blackmail a large percentage of the world's governments safe in the knowledge we can in fact arrest them for illegal bs does have an appeal however.

p1anecrazy•about 2 hours ago

Very good. No backstabbing DARPA shit in our house

dr_dshiv•about 1 hour ago

European civil servants are also usually banned from using AI — perhaps with the exception of Microsoft copilot. They live in a bubble where they just don’t know. This goes for most academics as well.

j_maffe•about 1 hour ago

What do you mean by most academics? In Europe? That's just blatently untrue.

jampekka•about 1 hour ago

What are you on about?

I don't know of any software or services that would be banned at my university. People use all sorts of LLMs extensively.

At least in Finland also civil servants are free to use what AI services they want, given they don't put in sensitive information. Just like they can use any search engine they want.

ironman1478•about 1 hour ago

Maybe that's a good thing. I want people running my country to actually know how to do things.

lpcvoid•about 1 hour ago

No idea why this is down voted. Ai makes people dumber and kills problem solving skills over a long timespan.

troupo•44 minutes ago

Ah yes. "It's so bad that people in government agencies cannot give sensitive info to US companies or blindly rely on LLMs for their decisions since nothing has ever happened when people in governments blindly trusted black boxes"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Post_Office_scandal

https://www.politico.eu/article/dutch-scandal-serves-as-a-wa...

440bx•about 2 hours ago

European civil servants, some of whom I have worked with, do most of the stuff that is uncontrollable while slightly pissed on roof bars after work. WhatsApp is the least of their problems.

Edit: love the downvoted from people who have never overheard red trouser lot speaking about current operations in a London pub slightly too loudly ... you have no idea!

lamasery•about 1 hour ago

I expect the downvotes are because rather than simply calling attention to and providing an interesting perspective on another area of weakness, you're also suggesting it's a mistake to address this one while the other exists, which suggestion isn't being well-received.

440bx•about 1 hour ago

I don't need a diagnosis of my point. Perhaps I should explain further.

I'll say that it's more that the assertion that WhatsApp is a big issue is false. Civil servants know stuff is on the record, for example through screenshots from colleagues and the like which is a higher risk than actual control and security issues over WhatApp, so it's more of a distraction from the real security and ethical posture problems. Most of which occur though loose lipped jabbering to each other in the pub.

Security hygiene is terrible. Literally the worst. It scares the shit out of me if I'm honest.

If you think technology is a problem then the social issue are worse!

9dev•39 minutes ago

How many EU civil servants are there in London these days, I wonder?

948382828528•about 1 hour ago

Quite a euphemism, framing regime henchmen as civil servants.

recursive•36 minutes ago

Could you give an example of someone that could be called a "civil servant" without euphemism?

9dev•37 minutes ago

"What have the Romans ever done for us?"