Brussels Record covers one question from many angles: who decides what you are allowed to say, read and be tracked doing, and how that decision gets made. Governments, platforms and the companies that sell them the tools all have a hand in it.
We do three things. We keep live records of what applies in the EU right now: the Chat Control Tracker, where the 27 governments stand and a plain-language glossary. We write the Who Decides? series, which follows a decision from proposal to law and names who made it. And we write practical guides. Nothing here is sponsored.
Three pieces that show what we do
EU Chat Control Tracker. What applies to your private messages right now, what is being negotiated and the dates that matter, updated after every Council meeting.
Where the 27 governments stand on Chat Control. Every government’s documented position, the two Council votes and the receipt behind each entry.
The law expired. The scanning did not. The scanning law lapsed in April 2026 and the scanning went on. Who decides what happens to your messages, and what do they owe you?
Five guides you can use today
Encrypted messaging without the myths. Twenty minutes, and you will stop guessing which app protects what.
How to read a privacy policy in ten minutes. Where to look, what to ignore, what should worry you.
Hardening your browser in an afternoon. One afternoon, a handful of settings, and most of the tracking is gone.
If your email falls, everything falls. One evening on the account that resets all the others.
Your phone at a border or a protest. What to decide before you travel or join a crowd, and what to expect if someone asks for your device.
Follow us without an algorithm
The email briefing. Five things worth your attention in every issue. No daily mail, no outrage bait, no sponsored placements. Subscribe →
RSS. The whole feed, in order, with nothing in between. Every article, the moment it is published. And if RSS is new to you, we wrote a guide to it.
How we work
Our sources, our corrections policy and how we handle what readers send us are all written down. If we get something wrong, we say so on the article. Editorial Policy → · About →
New to the vocabulary? Our plain-language glossary explains sixteen terms that keep coming up here, in ordinary English, with a link to the piece where each one appears.
Something we should look into?
If you have documents, a tip or a case of your own, Submit a case → explains how to reach us and how we handle what you send.
