The EU Wants to Spy on Europeans' Internet Use | 11 Jan 2024 | The European Commission is an EU legislative body with regulatory authority over digital technology. The EC's eIDAS Article 45, a proposed regulation, would deliberately weaken areas of internet security that the industry has carefully evolved and hardened for over 25 years. The Article would effectively grant the 27 EU governments vastly expanded surveillance powers over internet use. The rule would require all internet browsers to trust an additional root certificate from an agency (or a regulated entity) from each of the national governments of each one of the EU member states... This proposed regulation requires all browsers to trust a basket of certificates from CAs designated by the EU. Twenty-seven to be exact: one for each member nation. These certificates are to be called Qualified Website Authentication Certificates...The QWACs would be issued either by either government agencies, or what [CLG News founder] Michael Rectenwald calls governmentalities: "corporations and companies and other adjuncts of the state who are otherwise called 'private,' but really are operating as state apparatuses, in that they’re enforcing state narratives and dictates."