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"This is a political deception"  New Chat Control convinces lawmakers, but 
not privacy experts yet

Date:
Wed, 12 Nov 2025 15:53:00 +0000

Description:
The EU Council seems to agree to the new CSAM scanning compromise "without
further changes." Here's all we know.

FULL STORY

It's official, a revised version of the CSAM scanning proposal is back on the
EU lawmakers' table  and is keeping privacy experts worried. 

The Law Enforcement Working Party met again this morning (November 12) in the
EU Council to discuss what's been deemed by critics the Chat Control bill. 

This follows a meeting the group held on November 5, and comes as the Denmark
Presidency put forward a new compromise after withdrawing mandatory chat
scanning. 

As reported by Netzpolitik , the latest Child Sexual Abuse Regulation (CSAR)
proposal was received with broad support during the November 5 meeting,
"without any dissenting votes" nor further changes needed. 

The new text , which removes all provisions on detection obligations included
in the bill and makes CSAM scanning voluntary, seems to be the winning path 
to finally find an agreement after over three years of trying. 

Privacy experts and technologists aren't quite on board, though, with
long-standing Chat Control critic and digital rights jurist, Patrick Breyer,
deeming the proposal "a political deception of the highest order."

Chat Control -- what's changing and what are the risk

As per the latest version of the text , messaging service providers won't be
forced to scan all URLs, pictures, and videos shared by users, but rather
choose to perform voluntary CSAM scanning. 

There's a catch, though. Article 4 will include a possible "mitigation
measure" that could be applied to high-risk services to require them to take
"all appropriate risk mitigation measures." 

According to Breyer, such a loophole could make the removal of detection
obligations "worthless" by negating their voluntary nature. He said: "Even
client-side scanning (CSS) on our smartphones could soon become mandatory  
the end of secure encryption ." 

Breaking encryption, the tech that security software like the best VPNs ,
Signal, and WhatsApp use to secure our private communications, has been the
strongest argument against the proposal so far.

Breyer also warns that the new compromise goes further than the discarded
proposal, passing from AI-powered monitoring targeting shared multimedia to
the scanning of private chat texts and metadata, too. 

"The public is being played for fools," warns Breyer. "Following loud public
protests, several member states, including Germany, the Netherlands, Poland,
and Austria, said No to indiscriminate Chat Control. Now its coming back
through the back door." 

Breyer is far from being the only one expressing concerns. German-based
encrypted email provider, Tuta , is also raising the alarm. 

"Hummelgaard doesn't understand that no means no," the provider writes on X. 

To understand the next steps, we now need to wait and see what the outcomes
from today's meeting look like. 

======================================================================
Link to news story:
https://www.techradar.com/vpn/vpn-privacy-security/this-is-a-political-decepti
on-new-chat-control-convinces-lawmakers-but-not-privacy-experts-yet

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