Lyudmyla Kozlovska

CHAT CONTROL 2.0 BLOCKED AGAIN, THANKS TO YOU!

What happened yesterday: the European Parliament blocked the deal pushed by the EU Council.

The EU Council wanted:

(1) "voluntary" scanning of all private chats under "search plans" approved automatically unless an authority vetoes;

(2) administrative authorities, not courts, ordering providers to scan private messages, not limited to suspects, using AI with massive false positive rates;

(3) making the failed Chat Control 1.0 mass scanning regime permanent, while admitting it is not effective, as we discussed in my previous posts.

Your voice to parliamentarians made a huge difference again: the Parliament refused scanning of private communications, stating it must remain limited to persons linked to child sexual abuse, not everyone by default or under a blanket licence, as Council proposed.

The Parliament also closed the back door where "risk mitigation" rules could force providers into scanning under threat of fines.

What did pass: a preliminary agreement on scanning publicly accessible content for known child abuse material. This was proposed by the Parliament as the effective, targeted alternative. But we have doubts about it, keeping in mind how it works in financial laws 🙄

We still wait for the text to see what this means and will inform you in the coming weeks.

And if you think decentralized protocols are exempt, remember that #ChatControl targets service providers. Any #relay or client operating in the #EU could face obligations under this framework.

This defense proves again: our voice matters when it is vocal, with your support!

And we will need it again in November, so please follow the updates.

Now, it is important to call or write to your MEP and your government to say thank you to those who stand on the side of privacy.

They need to see you are watching their move. Please repost.

Important update on Revolut, and why this concerns anyone here whose data sits with a KYC'd service, exchange or fiat on-ramp:

(1) According to the group now extorting #Revolut, and the Duel team in contact with them, the attackers took over Italian government and law enforcement mailboxes with an infostealer, sent Revolut Bank UAB in Lithuania a forged European Investigation Order in the name of the Italian authorities, and kept sending requests for five months.

(2) Revolut answered every one, as #FATF Recommendations and EU AML laws require. Refusal carries fines up to €5 million or 10% of turnover. Nothing in the rules obliges the bank to check whether the state behind the request is who it claims to be. Now scale this abuse a thousand times, in the hands of authoritarian states and their proxies, who do not seek attention like these hackers and quietly collect data on citizens and entities of the #EU and other Western countries.

(3) The attackers claim to hold 147 GB from the #Italian side, including internal documents and officer chat logs, and say most of the Revolut data concerns customers in #Switzerland, #France and #Hungary, with other countries affected. Passports and #KYC selfies of named individuals are being published daily until Revolut pays.

Every bank, exchange, payment provider and #CASP in every jurisdiction that follows FATF rules is exposed the same way, because the rules oblige them to answer state requests and nobody is required to check whether the state behind the request is legitimate. Self-hosted wallets close one door. The moment your data touches a regulated intermediary the same channel opens.

Human rights groups, victims and experts, with support of Open Dialogue Foundation, described this risk to the European Parliament three years ago with support of

and few other bitcoiners. We proposed specific remedies, supported by the majority of the European Parliament. The European Commission and the Council removed every safeguard the Parliament adopted from the AML Regulation. That decision is why this is happening now.

Three institutions have since named this transnational financial repression: (1) European Parliament resolution of 18 June 2026, under MEP Hannah Neumann leadership; (2) Council of Europe Resolution 2669 of 25 June 2026, rapporteur MP Efstathiou, with MP Wiechel pushing for an investigation and remedies; (3) OSCE PA in The Hague, July 2026, led by MP Mauro Del Barbe, with the most detailed focus on exactly these attacks.

We are collecting witness statements to push for implementation. If you are a legal or security expert and want to support our work, DM me.

You want fewer surveillance channels open on you? The political fight decides which safeguards go back into the law. Support the MPs and MEPs who pushed for remedies. Demand accountability from Commission and Council for the ones they rejected. Before the next leak names someone who does not have the means to move house.

This week #Revolut confirmed it handed over customers' passports, verification selfies, home addresses, IBANs and full transaction histories, including #Bitcoin, to a fake government request.

The email came from a real government agency's domain, and Revolut complied because the rules told it to. #FATF rules, transposed into #US, #EU and #UK law, oblige every regulated institution to keep this data and hand it over promptly to any state request, with fines in the millions for delay and none for handing over too much.

Nobody is required to check whether the state behind the request is legitimate. Any exchange, on-ramp or card issuer you use sits under the same rules.

Authoritarian states and their proxies have used these requests for years against critics, donors and businesses. We call it transnational financial repression. This time it reached bitcoiners at scale.

Since 2022 the Open Dialogue Foundation has campaigned before EU regulators for the privacy of payments and asked the Bitcoin industry to join. We were grateful for the support of

,

and a few other bitcoiners. Most others laughed, saying we are losing time or it was not their business.

In 2023 we won a majority in the European Parliament for our safeguards. The closed-door trilogue then removed most of them from the AML Regulation. We did not have enough loud voices from the industry to defend payment privacy, and now not only activists, but also bitcoiners, business people, donors - we all face the hunting of our data at scale.

There is still a chance. In July 2026 OSCE Parliamentary Assembly parliamentarians adopted remedies against the weaponisation of AML/CFT laws and recognised transnational financial repression as a threat to the security of the OSCE area, which covers the US, Canada, Europe and Central Asia.

This would have been impossible without the support of Atlas Network,

and the Reynolds Foundation (nostr:nprofile1qqstm9njahmwtehmgxygudn6cz04vp48jucdffhr0pc7mjf726du6pgpp4mhxue69uhkummn9ekx7mqprpmhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuumwdae8gtnnda3kjctvq4apgm ), who understood the problem at first sight.

Will you keep observing and complaining, or join and make this space safe to use, invest and build in? There is nowhere else to run, if you understand how FATF rules work. If you don’t - happy to explain.

Privacy has to be protected and normalised as a human right. Now, before it is too late.

BEHAVIORAL DATA MUST BE PROTECTED

Some results after our advocacy mission educating MEPs in #Brussels about how dictators and their proxies weaponise behavioural data against #EU and #US citizens and entities: travel, communication, and financial service providers collect data about every single person.

This work is now reflected in the 2025 annual human rights report introduced by the European Parliament.

We are grateful that MEPs are ready to back our testimony and the evidence from the #Belgian court on how #FATF recommendations are being heavily abused to undermine security and financial integrity.

This why our top priority to defend privacy as a fundamental human right in digital age regulation.

Digital Rights Under Siege: Join BTCHEL Talks!

Join me to discuss why #Bitcoin P2P privacy payment tools, privacy of communication, and travel data protection matter more than ever at BTCHEL conference in #Helsinki (August 14-16)!

Bring anyone who's tired of feeling like their every move is being tracked and wants to do something about it!

Do it before it is too late - we're living through an unprecedented assault on digital privacy:

1. The EU's Anti-Money Laundering Authority (AMLA) is advancing a "zero tolerance for anonymity in crypto" policy, while...
2. Denmark's EU Presidency is fast-tracking #ChatControl regulation for adoption on October 14, 2025.

This isn't just regulatory overreach—it's the architecture of mass surveillance disguised as child protection and combating financial crimes/terrorism.

The consequences are already visible and show how financial surveillance creates real physical and national security dangers:

• kidnapping incidents in #France targeting crypto-assets holders,
• weaponisation of AML/CFT and cybersecurity laws for transnational financial repression in the #EU by authoritarian regimes and their proxies.

When your payment history, communication patterns, and travel data are exposed, you become a target.

For those who don't know - proposed ChatControl means:

• Automatic scanning of ALL private messages, emails, and chats
• Mandatory age verification ending anonymous communication
• Cloud storage monitoring, including your private photos
• App store censorship and digital exclusion of minors

Join me at BTCHEL (August 14-16) to examine new evidence of how Russia's allies are weaponizing cybersecurity and #AML regulations against the EU, #US, and #Western democratic institutions.

In a world where digital and physical converge, privacy of payments, communication, and travel isn't just convenience—it's survival. It protects your life, property, and cultural identity from those who would exploit your data.

See you! 🧡

TARCZYŃSKI MEP NIGHT APOLOGIES TO ME AND OPEN DIALOGUE FOUNDATION FOR DEFAMATION

On 3rd of Jan 2025 a Member of the European Parliament and candidate for the Law and Justice's would-be presidential election Dominik Tarczynski has published an apology for slandering me, Lyudmyla Kozlovska, and Open Dialogue Foundation.

His statement is the result of a final lost in court.

However, Tarczynski wrote it overnight in the hope that no one would see it while our profiles in X have been blocked by him.

Just to recall, Tarczynski in 2019 slandered us for money laundering from #Russia. He attacked us with same false slanders in while he was a Member of Parliamentary Assembley of the Council of Europe, and then in the European Parliament.

This slander was also affecting our rights for banking services in the #EU, financially excluding me, my family members and different entities connected with me.

The verdict in this case came down in the summer of 2022, and on 20 Dec. 2024 the Court of Appeal in #Warsaw rejected his whole application, requiring a compensation and the publication of such content:

'I, Dominik Tarczynski, apologise to Lyudmyla Kozlovska for infringement of her dignity and good name and to the Open Dialogue Foundation in Warsaw (Registration no. (KRS): 0000353754) for damage to its reputation and good name by disseminating damaging and untrue information about their participation in laundering of money coming from Russia during my appearance in the Deutsche Welle programme ‘Conflict Zone’'.

Certainly 10 000 PLN as compensation isn't enough to restore the reputation and damage caused by Tarczynski for the last 5 years.

We should put in place more effective accountability measures to stop these kinds of attacks, especially from state representatives in the Parliamentary Assembley of the Council of Europe and European Parliament.

WHY WE NEED FREEDOMTECH EMBASSY IN BRUSSELS NOW

With many voices at

in #Amsterdam expressing very correct assessments of the discriminatory policy approach in the #EU against Bitcoin and now following the proposed by the European Central Bank analysts, I want to recall two important aspects:

🔴 First, well known: the #ECB states explicitly by saying their main goal is to “disincentivise investment in Bitcoin mining”. ECB frame it as "a climate risk priced into crypto-assets", in fact attacking PoW and Bitcoin mining. https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/financial-stability-publications/macroprudential-bulletin/html/ecb.mpbu202207_3~d9614ea8e6.en.html

🔴Now for the lesser known, but most important to assess the risks of their latest so-called analyses - the EU's drafting of a regulation to expand the European Central Bank's supervisory powers over crypto-assets, which potentially gives the ECB endless power to attack #Bitcoin and implement its discriminatory regulatory proposals.

This information was re-confirmed in August 2024 by the European Parliament's Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON). https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2024/755728/IPOL_STU(2024)755728_EN.pdf

🟡 From the ECON’s study we know that:

🔻 Since 2022, key topics discussed by the ECB with policymakers are (1) the ECB's banking supervision programme on the importance of the role of banks in the transition to a digitalised and carbon-neutral economy; (2) response for the emerging risks from the crypto sector and non-financial banking institutions; (3) the energy crisis;

🔻 ECB is increasingly consulted on future regulatory priorities, and on its stance regarding new legislation that is being negotiated with the Commission and the Council;

🔻 ECB response focusses on banks’ ESG risks which it considers a threat for banks and financial stability overall, therefore having made it a supervisory priority;

🔻 ECB mentions that it assesses, jointly with European Banking Authority (EBA), whether ESG risks should be reflected in regulatory capital requirements.

And these attacks continue and in parallel echo in developing Bitcoin mining ban in Norway, Iceland, discriminative taxation in Italy and Netherlands, classification self-hosted wallets p2p transactions as high risk transactions in the AML Regulation and by the biggest political groups in German Bundestag, development AML Authority supervision with particular focus on crowdfunding companies and crypto-asset service providers (CASPs), implementation of MiCA regulation by Denmark with attempt to classify mob apps like self-hosted wallets as “interface providers”, discussion of the categorisation of lighting as a “money transmitter”...

🟢What we can do together:

🔻Join Open Dialogue Foundation to establish a #FreedomTech embassy in Brussels. Let's bring together expertise and resources to develop a safe regulatory environment in the European Single Market for Bitcoin miners, investors, developers and end-users.

🔻Let’s systematically protect our FreedomTech and educate policymakers, media, academia. Let’s say loudly about wrong approach of ECB on Bitcoin and Bitcoin mining specifically.

The U.S. bitcoiners have made Bitcoin protection a reality and continue to do so. 💪🧡

We should and can do it in the EU as well.