- The EU Parliament puts pressure on an agreement on the bill for digitizing sexual abuse (CSAM), according to a disclosed memo
- According to the Legal Service Council, the proposal still violates fundamental human rights in its current form
- The Danish version of the so-called cat control could be adopted from October 14, 2025
According to a Memo disclosed, the EU Parliament pushes to reach an agreement on the proposal to sweep the sexual abuse (CSAM) disputed.
As reported by the Digital Rights Netzpolitik group, during the meeting held on July 11, the Parliament threatened to block an extension of the provisional voluntary scanning regulations – a temporary law which allows messaging providers to scan the discussions of their users if they wish – unless the council accepts to be compulsory.
“This political blackmail obliges a bad choice and contradicts the declared position of the Parliament against the mass scanner,” told Techradar, a former German pirate deputy, Patrick Breyer.
Denmark has reintroduced the controversial bill The first day of his presidency of the EU. Now, new obligations for all messaging services in Europe to scan user cats could be adopted in October.
“A more radical version”
Proposed for the first time in May 2022, which criticisms considered to be chat control aimed to stop the propagation of CSAM content online by scanning all communications, especially those encrypted.
Over the years, however, the proposal has experienced twists and turns such as privacy defenders, technologists and even politicians have raised concerns.
Experts particularly fear that these new digitization obligations will end up undermining encryption protections. A crucial safety feature that WhatsApp, Signal and Proton Mail use to blur user online communications in an illegible form and prevent unauthorized access.
According to its first version, all messaging software suppliers would be required to carry out a blind analysis of private messages to search for the CSAM. The counterpoux was strong, the European Court of Human Rights prohibiting all legal efforts to weaken the encryption of secure communications in Europe.
In June 2024, Belgium proposed a new text more compromised to target only shared photos, videos and URLs, with the permission of users. In February 2025, Poland tried to find a better compromise by making the Chat Cat Cat Voluntary and classified as “prevention”.
However, according to Breyer, the Danish proposal is the “more radical version” so far. “This proposal includes the compulsory mass digitization of private communications and aims to break secure encryption by forcing digitization on the customer side in your messaging applications. The government and the military and military accounts will be exempt from this intrusive and unreliable digitization,” he explains.
🇬🇧🚨Leak: Many countries that said no to #ChatControl in 2024 are now undecided, even if the 2025 plan is even more extreme! 🗳️ The vote is in October. »Say to your government of #StopchatControl! Act now: pic.twitter.com/dmfuqn5amkJuly 31, 2025
The disclocked memo also confirms that the legal service of the EU council still considers that the current proposal violates the fundamental rights of Europeans because “the main problems of access to communication for potentially all users have remained unchanged”.
In addition, many countries that have opposed cat control in 2024 seem to bend towards an agreement. The nations welcoming and supporting the Danish proposal include 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 undecided or need a review with their local parliament.
All governments must finalize their evaluations by September 12, when the next meeting should take place. The objective, however, is to finally deliberate on the bill on October 14 (see page 31 of the agenda).
What is certain is that the pressure to have legal access to the encrypted data of citizens is a major priority for EU legislators. At the end of June, the EU Commission also published the first stage of its Protective strategy, which sought to allow the police to decipher your private data by 2030.
