- The EU Parliament is pressing for a deal on Child Sexual Abuse (CSAM) scanning bill, according to a leaked memo
- As per the Council’s Legal Service, the proposal still violates basic human rights in its current form
- The Danish version of the so -called chat check could be adopted already on October 14, 2025
According to a leaked memo, the EU Parliament is pressing to reach an agreement on the disputed sexual abuse of children (CSAM).
As reported by the digital rights group Netzpolitik, during the meeting held on July 11, Parliament threatened to block an extension of the current voluntary scanning regulation – a temporary law that allows message providers to scan their user’s chats if they wish – unless the Council agrees with mandatory scan.
“This political extortion forces a bad choice and contradicts Parliament’s own stated attitude against mass scanning,” former MEP told the German Pirate Party, Patrick Breyer, to Techradar.
Denmark has reinstated the controversial bill On the first day of its EU Presidency. Now, new obligations for all messaging services in Europe could scan users’ chats adopted as early as October.
“A more radical version”
First proposed in May 2022, what critics consider chat control, aim to stop the spread of CSAM content online by scanning all communication, especially encrypted.
Over the years, however, the proposal has seen some phrases as personal advocates, technologists and even politicians raised concerns.
Experts are particularly concerned that these new scanning obligations will end up undermining encryption protection. A crucial security feature that WhatsApp, Signal and Proton Mail uses to crawl users’ online communication into an ulcerous form and prevent unauthorized access.
According to its first version, all Message Software providers would be required to perform arbitrary scanning of private messages to look for CSAM. Backlash was strong as the European Human Rights Court continued to ban all legal efforts to weaken the encryption of safe communication in Europe.
In June 2024, Belgium suggested a new, more compromising text to target only shared photos, videos and URLs with users’ permission. In February 2025, Poland tried to find a better compromise by making encrypted chat scanning voluntary and classified as “prevention.”
According to Breyer, however, the Danish proposal is the “more radical version” so far. “This proposal includes the mandatory mass scan of private communication and aims to break secure encryption by forcing the client page scan to your messaging apps. The narrative will be exempt from this intrusive and unreliable scan,” he explains.
🇬🇧🚨Leak: Many countries that said no to #chatcontrol in 2024 are now effortless – even though the 2025 plan is even more extreme! 🗳 Voting is in October. 👉 Tell your government to #stopchatcontrol! Act Now: pic.twitter.com/dmfuqn5amk31 July 2025
The leaked memo also confirms that the EU Council’s legal service still believes that the current proposal violates Europeans’ fundamental rights as “the core problems of access to communication for potentially all users remained unchanged.”
Furthermore, it seems that many countries that opposed chat control in 2024 are prone to an agreement. The nations, which are inviting and supporting the Danish proposal, includes Italy, Spain and Hungary. France also said that “it could essentially support the proposal.”
Belgium, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Slovenia, Luxembourg and Romania are currently remaining undue or need a review with their local parliament.
All governments have to end their evaluations by September 12, when the next meeting is set to take place. However, the goal is to finally consider the bill on October 14 (see page 31 on the agenda).
What is certain is that the pressure to have 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 in its Protecteu strategy, which seemed to enable law enforcement agencies to decrypt your private data by 2030.
