![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/cointelegraph:59876569d094b-179ab6848bce1bb3b92ed67938365bff-resized.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nMessaging app Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov warns that a \u201cdark, dystopian world\u201d is approaching, as governments worldwide are rolling back privacy protections.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m turning 41, but I don\u2019t feel like celebrating. Our generation is running out of time to save the free internet built for us by our fathers,\u201d said Durov in an X post on Thursday.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce-free countries are introducing dystopian measures,\u201d said Durov, referencing the European Union\u2019s Chat Control proposal, digital IDs in the UK and new rules requiring online age checks to access social media in Australia.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat was once the promise of the free exchange of information is being turned into the ultimate tool of control.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cGermany is persecuting anyone who dares to criticize officials on the Internet. The UK is imprisoning thousands for their tweets. France is criminally investigating tech leaders who defend freedom and privacy.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cA dark, dystopian world is approaching fast \u2014 while we\u2019re asleep. Our generation risks going down in history as the last one that had freedoms \u2014 and allowed them to be taken away,\u201d Pavel added.<\/p>\n
Privacy protections are a cornerstone of Bitcoin and the broader cryptocurrency industry. Bitcoin was created to operate pseudonymously, using addresses instead of names, and allowing peer-to-peer transactions without the involvement of banks, among other measures.<\/p>\n
Germany may have blocked the EU\u2019s Chat Control<\/p>\n
EU lawmakers were set to vote on the Chat Control law next week, which critics argue undermines encrypted messaging and people\u2019s right to privacy as it requires services such as Telegram, WhatsApp and Signal to allow regulators to screen messages before they are encrypted and sent.<\/p>\n
The legislation, however, has been dealth a heavy blow, with the head of Germany\u2019s largest political party coming out in opposition. Germany, which holds 97 seats in the European Parliament, was seen as having the final say on whether it would pass.<\/p>\n
The president of messaging app Signal, Meredith Whittaker, said on Thursday that while Germany\u2019s opposition to the measure is a relief, she warns that \u201cthe war is not over,\u201d because it now moves to \u201cthe European Council, where the issue is unresolved.\u201d<\/p>\n
She also warns that any further attempts to enact similar measures allowing the scanning of content should be opposed because it negates encryption and also creates \u201ca dangerous backdoor.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe technical consensus is clear: you can\u2019t create a backdoor that only lets the ‘good guys’ in. However they’re dressed up, these proposals create cybersecurity loopholes that hackers and hostile nations are eagerly waiting to exploit .\u201d<\/p>\n
The UK\u2019s Digital ID has sparked concerns too<\/p>\n
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced a UK digital ID scheme in September, which would require citizens to prove their right to live and work in the country.<\/p>\n
The government is pushing the measure as a way to combat illegal workers, while also cutting down wait times to verify identities and gain access to government services, such as licences, childcare, welfare and tax.<\/p>\n
Critics argue that the scheme raises privacy concerns as individuals would be required to provide personal information to be stored on a government app, and it would be too easy for the government to misuse it.<\/p>\n
Over 2.8 million people have already signed a petition opposing the introduction of a digital ID. Petitions that gain more than 100,000 signatures have to be considered for debate in Parliament.<\/p>\n
Australia\u2019s online age verification system raises privacy issues as well<\/p>\n
Australia will restrict access to social media platforms for users under 16 from Dec. 10, and one of the measures floated to enforce the ban has been an online digital age verification system.<\/p>\n
Lawmakers in the country argue that the scheme will protect minors from harmful content online. However, critics share similar privacy concerns with the UK system, namely that it could lead to government misuse and create privacy issues with the storage of data.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Messaging app Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov warns that a \u201cdark, dystopian world\u201d is approaching, as governments…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":198377,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[49,48,244,61],"class_list":{"0":"post-201784","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-internet","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-internet","11":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201784"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201784\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/198377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}