- Poland’s EU Presidency also failed to find a majority on the disputed child sexual abuse (CSAM) scanning bill
- The EU Commission first unveiled the so-called Chat Control proposal in May 2022
- In February, Poland proposed a new version to make the scanning of encrypted chats voluntary
Also Poland has failed in its attempt to find an agreement on the controversial child sexual abuse (CSAM) scanning bill.
As reported by digital rights group Netzpolitik, the Polish Presidency is the latest EU Council to give up after being unable to secure the necessary majority among EU members. The bill seeks to require all messaging services in Europe to scan users’ chats, even if they’re encrypted.
That said, what’s been deemed by critics as Chat Control may not be off the table just yet. On July 1, 2025, Denmark is set to take charge of the EU Presidency until December. A strong supporter of Chat Control, experts at Netxpolitik expect Denmark to push ahead with the proposal.
“No agreement could be reached” – again
“No agreement could be reached during the meeting,” reads the summary (as published by Netxpolitik) of the final meeting held by the Polish Presidency on the matter on May 23, 2025.
The EU Commission first unveiled the proposal in May 2022 as a solution to the spread of CSAM content. Since then, the proposal has seen many twists and turns, but many experts and politicians alike have warned against the privacy and security risks of undermining encrypted communications.
As per its first version, all messaging software providers, no matter if they use encryption, would have been required to perform indiscriminate scanning of private messages on the lookout for CSAM – so-called ‘client-side scanning‘.
Backlash among the industry and even among the EU political benches – the European Court of Human Rights banned all legal efforts to weaken encryption of secure communications in Europe at the beginning of 2024, in fact – brought lawmakers to adjust the wording. Last June, Belgium then proposed a new text to target only shared photos, videos, and URLs, upon users’ permission.
Did you know?
Encryption is a technology that the likes of WhatsApp, Signal, ProtonMail, and even the best VPN apps use to scramble users’ messages into an unreadable form to prevent unauthorized access. Put simply, end-to-end encryption guarantees that our chats stay private.
This version didn’t satisfy either the industry or voting EU members, though, due to its coercive nature. As per the Belgian text, users must give consent to the shared material being scanned before being encrypted to keep using the functionality.
Fast-forward to February 2025, Poland tried to find a better compromise by making the scanning of encrypted chats voluntary instead of mandatory and classified as “prevention.”
While experts found this version a “major progress,” they still lamented the risk of mass surveillance.
Throughout the entire Presidency, EU members couldn’t agree on a satisfactory wording, despite several attempts to amend the compromise text.
As reported by Netzpolitik, during the last meeting, many EU member representatives expressed their concerns. These included even countries that previously joined the in-favor list, like Italy, Romania, and France. The latter even stated, “It doesn’t make sense to continue working with this text at all.”
As mentioned earlier, Denmark is expected to keep trying to find an agreement on the CSAM scanning proposal after starting its Presidency in July.
This comes as the EU Commission is also set to kick off its enquiry into lawful encryption backdoor under a new controversial plan, ProtectEU. Despite being in its infancy, the strategy has already attracted strong criticism across the industry.
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chiara.castro@futurenet.com (Chiara Castro)
