Comment by flanked-evergl 3 days ago
European here. Governments in Europe, even ones that have GDPR on their books, literally act as oppressively as they want to act: U.K. orders Apple to let it spy on users' encrypted accounts [1]
[1]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/02/07/apple-e...
It's a classic Motte and Bailey. "Europe acts in this way, so much better than America. [...] No no, not THAT Europe, I of course was only talking about this other part of Europe!"
How is the most populous state in the EU doing?
> The German parliament amended two laws on June 10th granting enhanced surveillance powers to segments of the federal police and intelligence services. They allow the use of spyware to hack into phones and computers circumventing encryption used by messaging applications such as WhatsApp and Signal, raising concerns about the right to privacy.
> The new federal police law allows interception of communications of “persons against whom no suspicion of a crime has yet been established and therefore no criminal procedure measure can yet be ordered”. This fails to ensure the necessary protection against unjustified and arbitrary interference in people’s privacy, required under international law. Human Rights Watch and the United Nations have pointed out the importance of encryption and anonymity for data protection and the right to privacy.
> The government argues that new legislation is needed to keep up with technological developments and claims the new powers are to help federal police stifle human trafficking and undocumented migration.
https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/06/24/germanys-new-surveillanc...
...oh
Please provide examples of how the following countries are surveillance states:
Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czechia, Croatia, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, France
European here.
There are vast differences between how the different governments operate.