- Chat Control proposal still poses risk, group of academics warns
- Open letter comes as EU Council meets
- The bill could be adopted as early as December 8, 2025
Conversation control legislation “still brings high risks to society without clear benefits for children,” according to a recently published open letter by a group of European academics.
After once again failing to obtain the required majority, Denmark removed the mandatory scanning clause included in the original cat control bill, making it now voluntary.
The move was initially hailed as a victory by privacy and security experts, but it was short-lived, with people warning that the text could still introduce mandatory scanning.through the back door. »
A group of 18 leading European cybersecurity and privacy academics reiterated these concerns in an open letter published this week.
The letter was sent to the European Council two days before the November 19 meeting with the Permanent Representatives Committee, the adoption of which is expected as early as December 8, 2025.
Expanding scope worries privacy advocates
Originally, only URLs, images, and videos were going to be the target of CSAM analysis. However, lawmakers have now expanded the scope of the bill to also include text, in a move that echoes previous versions of the bill.
In their open letter, the academics warn that expanding the scope of the legislation would lead to unintended consequences. They argue in particular that “expanding the scope of detection only opens the door to the surveillance and examination of a larger part of conversations, without any guarantee of better protection”.
They also highlight the potential for false positives, writing: “current AI technology is far from being precise enough to undertake these tasks with guarantees of the necessary level of precision.”
Regarding mandatory age verification
The new proposal would also result in Age verification is being introduced on app stores and encrypted messaging services like WhatsApp. Not only does this fall short of the bill’s main goal, experts say, it also exposes everyone to new privacy and security risks.
“Age assessment cannot be performed in a privacy-preserving manner with current technology due to reliance on biometric, behavioral, or contextual information,” they argue. “In fact, it encourages the collection and exploitation of data (on children).”
Experts warn that even adopting an alternative approach – such as using official documents to verify age – would deprive a “substantial fraction of the population” of essential online services.
Furthermore, these provisions would be easy to circumvent. They “can be easily circumvented, using providers located outside the EU or VPNs to avoid geolocation checks,” the experts note.
Voluntary detection always carries risks
It appears that changing the CSAM analysis from mandatory to voluntary was enough to secure bipartisan agreements among lawmakers and end more than three years of failed negotiations.
But many cryptography experts and data scientists remain convinced that even intentional detection will harm security and privacy, partly due to the belief that the technology is not accurate or effective enough at present.
Overall, “device-integrated sensing technologies cannot be considered a reasonable tool for risk mitigation, as they present no proven benefit, while the potential for harm and abuse is enormous,” they conclude.
🇪🇺EU governments are removing #ChatControl from today’s COREPER agenda because a majority has not yet been reached. For the reasons, see this leaked cable, particularly regarding Spain’s request: pic.twitter.com/poNH2hH8KVNovember 19, 2025
The open letter appears to have already influenced today’s meeting.
As a leaked cable shared by former German Pirate Party MEP and digital rights lawyer Patrick Breyer shows, European governments are removing chat control from the current COREPER agenda because a majority has not yet been reached.
This could seriously delay the adoption of the new rules, expected from December 8, 2025.
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