- The EU Parliament is pressing for an agreement on the draft Law on Child Sexual Abuse (CSAM), according to a filtering memorandum
- According to the legal service, the proposal still violates the fundamental human rights in its current form
- The Danish version of the so -called chat control could be adopted as soon as October 14, 2025
According to a filtering memorandum, the EU Parliament is pressing to reach an agreement on the proposal for the scan of child sexual abuse in dispute (CSAM).
As reported by the Netzpolitik digital rights group, during the meeting held on July 11, the Parliament threatened to block an extension of the current provisional voluntary scan regulation, a temporary law that allows messaging suppliers to scan the chats of its users if they wish, unless the Council accepts the mandatory scan.
“This political blackmail forces a bad choice and contradicts the declared position of the Parliament against mass exploration,” the former Euro of the German Pirate Party, Patrick Breyer, told Techradar.
Denmark has reintroduced the controversial bill The first day of its EU presidency. Now, new obligations could be adopted for all messaging services to scan user chats already in October.
“A more radical version”
Proposed for the first time in May 2022, what critics considered that chat control aims to stop the propagation of CSAM content online scanning all communications, especially encrypted.
Over the years, however, the proposal has seen some turns and turns as defenders of privacy, technologists and even politicians expressed concerns.
Experts are especially concerned that these new scanning obligations end up undermining encryption protections. A crucial security feature that use WhatsApp, Signal and Proton Mail to stir the online communications of users in an illegible way and avoid unauthorized access.
According to their first version, all messaging software providers should perform indiscriminate scanning of private messages to search CSAM. The reaction was strong, and the European Court of Human Rights proceeded to prohibit all legal efforts to weaken safe communications encryption in Europe.
In June 2024, Belgium proposed a new more compromising text to aim only photos, videos and URL shared, with the permission of users. In February 2025, Poland tried to find a better commitment making the encrypted chat scan volunteer and classified as “prevention.”
However, according to Breyer, the Danish proposal is the “most radical version” so far. “This proposal includes the mandatory massive scan of private communications and aims to break safe encryption by forcing the client’s side to their messages. In revealing way, government and military accounts will be exempt from this intrusive and unreliable scan,” he explains.
🇬🇧🚨Leak: Many countries that said no to #ChatControl in 2024 are now undecided, despite the fact that the 2025 plan is even more extreme!July 31, 2025
The filtered memorandum also confirms that the EU council legal service still believes that the current proposal violates the fundamental rights of Europeans as “the central problems of access to communication to potentially all users remained unchanged.”
In addition, many countries that opposed the chat control in 2024 seem to lean towards an agreement. The nations that host and support the Danish proposal include Italy, Spain and Hungary. France also said that “I could essentially support the proposal.”
Belgium, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Slovenia, Luxembourg and Romania are currently undecided or need a review with their local parliament.
All governments need to finish their evaluations before September 12, when the next meeting will take place. The objective, however, is finally deliberating in the bill on October 14 (see page 31 of the agenda).
What is certain is that the impulse of having legal access to citizens encrypted data is an important priority for EU legislators. At the end of last June, the EU Commission also published the first step within its Protectu strategy, which sought to allow the agencies to apply the law to decipher their private data by 2030.
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