- The presidency of the EU of Poland also did not find the majority in the draft scan law of child sexual abuse in dispute (CSAM)
- The EU Commission first presented the Chat Control proposal call in May 2022
- In February, Poland proposed a new version to make the scanning of chats encrypted volunteers
Poland has also failed in its attempt to find an agreement on the controversial draft law of child sexual abuse (CSAM).
As reported by the Netzpolitik Digital Rights Group, the Polish Presidency is the EU last council to resign after not being able to ensure the necessary majority among EU members. The bill seeks to demand all messaging services in Europe to scan user chats, even if they are encrypted.
That said, what critics have considered critics as chat control may not be outside the table. On July 1, 2025, Denmark will take over the EU presidency until December. A firm Chat Control defender, Netxpolitik experts expect Denmark to advance with the proposal.
“No agreement could be reached” – again
“No agreement could be reached during the meeting,” reads in the summary (as published by Netxpolitik) of the final meeting held by the Polish Presidency on the matter of May 23, 2025.
The EU Commission first presented the proposal in May 2022 as a solution to the spread of CSAM content. Since then, the proposal has seen many turns and turns, but many experts and politicians have warned against the privacy and security risks of undermining encrypted communications.
According to their first version, all messaging software suppliers, regardless of whether they use encryption, would have required the indiscriminate scan of private messages in the search for CSAM, the so -called ‘scan of the client’s side’.
The reaction between the industry and even among the EU political banks, the European Court of Human Rights forbade all legal efforts to weaken secure communications encryption in Europe in early 2024, in fact, brought legislators to adjust the drafting. Last June, Belgium proposed a new text to aim only photos, videos and URL shared with the user’s permission.
Did you know?
Encryption is a technology that WhatsApp, Signal, Protonmail and even the best VPN applications use to stir user messages in an illegible form to avoid unauthorized access. In a nutshell, end -to -end encryption guarantees that our chats remain private.
However, this version did not satisfy the industry or voted to the EU members due to their coercive nature. According to the Belgian text, users must give their consent for the shared material to be scanned before being encrypted to continue using functionality.
Fast progress until February 2025, Poland tried to find a better commitment making the scan of volunteer encrypted chats instead of mandatory and classified as “prevention.”
While experts found this version as an “important progress,” they still regretted the risk of mass surveillance.
Throughout the presidency, EU members could not agree on satisfactory writing, despite several attempts to amend the commitment text.
As reported by Netzpolitik, during the last meeting, many EU members expressed their concerns. These even included countries that previously joined the list of favorites, such as Italy, Romania and France. The latter even declared: “It makes no sense to continue working with this text.”
As mentioned above, Denmark is expected to continue trying to find an agreement on CSAM’s scanning proposal after starting his presidency in July.
This occurs when the EU Commission will also begin its investigation at the rear door of legal encryption under a new controversial plan, Protectu. Despite being in his childhood, the strategy has already attracted strong criticism throughout the industry.
