The so-called “Chat Control”the European proposal designed to combat sexual abuse of minors online through the direct control of private messages, may have reached the end of the line. Denmark, which currently holds the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union, has backtracked on the project, judging it to be too invasive and harmful to users’ privacy.
We have already been talking about this regulation for several years and, in recent months, it seemed to be becoming more and more concrete. The proposal, known as CSAM (Regulation to Prevent and Combat Child Sexual Abuse)dates back to 2022 and was launched by the European Commissioner for Home Affairs Ylva Johansson. The basic idea envisaged that digital platforms, from WhatsApp to Telegram and via email services, directly analyze every message, photo or video sent, to automatically identify child pornography content or online solicitation attempts.
This measure, at least in intention, was supposed to strengthen the fight against online crimes against minors, but it immediately raised a wave of criticism. Privacy experts, jurists and digital rights activists have renamed it “Chat Control”stating that he would question the end-to-end encryption used by many messaging apps, as well as the principle of private communication itself. The fear was that a system of mass control could open the way to new forms of censorship and violations of privacy.
Denmark has not gathered the necessary consensus
Although Denmark initially supported the approval of the measure during its six-month presidency, it failed to gather sufficient consensus among the 27 member states of theEuropean Union. As time passed, the Presidency completely changed its mind on the measure, also thanks to Germany’s decisive position: after some initial openings, the German Minister of Justice defined this measure a “unjustified chat monitoring”.
Other member countries have also expressed various doubts about this regulation, while others, including theItalythey had decided to move towards a slightly more cautious approach. In light of the political difficulties, the new objective of the Danish Presidency is to renew the current legislationwhich allows tech companies to carry out voluntary checks on suspicious content, extending its validity beyond the April 2026 deadline.
If the Council of the European Union manages to find a subsequent agreement on this new proposal, a new phase of negotiations will open with the European Parliament to arrive at a text shared by the majority of member states. For now, however, the much discussed “Chat Control” seems to have lost the political support needed to become reality: the privacy of European citizens is, at least for the moment, safe.
