Oh, absolutely. In case it wasn’t clear, I’m against chatcontrol.

They don’t actually have to enforce that though. Rather, it’s a neat trick: if you do use encrypted chats, well, you’re purposefully doing something illegal! To hide information, no less! That surely means you have more to hide, and since you’ve already broken a law, let’s investigate further!

To be clear: I’m not saying this is the intended effect. But it is a frighteningly possible one. Anyone who has reason to hide their communication (regime critical activists, opposition politicians, investigative journalists,…) either have to

• accept that their communication will be scanned, making it trivial to spy on them and use that information (legally, no less!) to hinder/stop them, or
• do something illegal, giving pretext for hindering/stopping them since they’ve now committed a crime

Didn’t know about this, but sounds like a good cause.

Is there any legal risk involved with this? Is it recommended to run behind a VPN?

Racist. That’s the adjective describing the father that’s - somehow, miraculously - missing from the quoted excerpt.

The only flagship phone I know that has all the features (3.5mm, SD card,…) is the Xperia 1 series, and those are kinda expensive, sadly.