A lot of people talking about the EU's #ChatControl bill, and rightly so.

[ella@eupolicy.social]

A lot of people talking about the EU's #ChatControl bill, and rightly so. There are 2 really important votes coming up.

As someone who has worked on it for 4 years (before the official proposal was even put forward) from a digital human rights perspective, here's a quick recap / informed source of what the heck is actually going on:

- The European Commission put forward a proposal in 2022 to mass scan public and private communications, using AI, in case of people sharing abuse material;

(1/x)

[ella@eupolicy.social]

- Yes, the Commission's proposal contained some "safeguards", but all the official legal services of the EU institutions warned that these would not be enough to make the proposal lawful. In fact, they were all clear that if adopted, the proposal would amount to mass surveillance and would undermine encryption (https://edri.org/our-work/most-criticised-eu-law-of-all-time/);

- Despite this, the Commission's Home Affairs dept has lobbied for their own law in an unprecedented way - which several times led to maladministration;

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[ella@eupolicy.social]

- We collected info about the main Commission controversies, including *confirmed illegal actions*, here: https://edri.org/our-work/csa-regulation-document-pool/;

- Since then, a lot has happened. The European Parliament adopted a pretty good position against #ChatControl back in 2023;

- But "the Council" (the grouping of EU Member States) doesn't have a position yet. They've gone back and forth for literally years and luckily, a sufficient number of countries have always said no to mass surveillance + breaking E2EE;

(3/x)

[ella@eupolicy.social]

- More than ever, the Council is being put under immense pressure to find agreement. Six countries have tried and failed to get a deal so far - and the only one that actually opposed #ChatControl was Poland.

- Denmark is now the country that is trying to get a Council deal, and their Justice minister has been coming out with all sorts of wild stuff like "I believe that more surveillance equates to more freedom" (see the @chatcontrol campaign for more);

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[ella@eupolicy.social]

- So what now? Well, Denmark has put forward a "new" text dated 3 Oct (which actually just recycles all the old ideas that were already rejected). Whilst Denmark says that it contains "more safeguards", the text continues to have "Detection Orders" that would scan end-to-end encrypted communications, and they even expressly say that they'd use "Client-Side Scanning" for this;

- As per the official process, Denmark is putting this text to vote twice - once this week, and once next week;

(5/x)

[ella@eupolicy.social]

- In the vote this week (8 October), ambassadors from all EU Member States will get together (behind closed doors) to indicate how they plan to vote at the main (public) vote (14 October);

- A lot of people will be looking at Germany, who have long been opposed to #ChatControl, but who are now rumoured to be considering the Danish proposal. Germany is very important because if they switched to support the proposal, Denmark might be able to secure a deal (https://edri.org/our-work/chat-control-what-is-actually-going-on/);

(6/x)

[ella@eupolicy.social]

- So what can we do? Well, national ministers and MPs really need to hear (ideally before Wednesday 8th) that people across the EU do not support measures that would undermine encryption or amount to mass surveillance - meaning that the Danish proposal must be opposed (https://edri.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/New-DK-Pres-text-3-October-2025.pdf);

- German, French and Italian lawmakers can be contacted easily, thanks to fightchatcontrol.eu;

- I'll share more as it happens! #StopChatControl

(7/x)

[ella@eupolicy.social]

Update: In the last few days, there's been a huge mobilisation again #ChatControl, with many individuals and NGOs in the #EU telling their governments they want to protect encryption & reject mass surveillance.

It seems that our voices are being heard: the vote of ministers on 14th Oct has been cancelled! This is democracy in action.

Let's hope EU lawmakers take this opportunity to go back to the drawing board to figure out a plan to tackle CSAM in a way that is legally + technically safe. (8/