The EU proposal to scan all your WhatsApp chats is back on the agenda

The EU proposal to scan all your private communications to halt the spread of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) is back on regulators’ agenda – again.

What’s been deemed by critics as Chat Control has seen many twists and turns since the European Commission presented the first version of the draft bill in May 2022. The latest development came in October 2024, when a last-minute decision by the Netherlands to abstain from the vote prompted the Hungarian Council Presidency to remove the matter from the planned discussion.

Now, about two months later, the controversial proposal has returned and is amongst the topics the EU Council is set to discuss today, December 4, 2024.

What is the EU CSAM scan bill?

As mentioned, lawmakers have implemented some changes to the EU CSAM bill amid growing criticism from the privacy, tech, and political benches.

Initially, the plan was to require messaging services and email providers to scan all your messages on the lookout for illegal material – no matter if these were encrypted, like WhatsApp or Signal chats, for example, to ensure that communications remain private between the sender and receiver.

Lawmakers suggested employing what’s known as client side-scanning, a technique that experts, including some of the best VPN providers and messaging apps, have long warned against as it cannot be executed without breaking encryption protection. Even the UK halted this requirement under its Online Safety Act until “it’s technically feasible to do so.”

Fast-forward to June 2024, the second version of the EU proposal aims to target shared photos, videos, and URLs instead of text and audio messages upon users’ permission. There’s a caveat, though – you must consent to the shared material being scanned before being encrypted to keep using the functionality.

This wording made privacy experts furious, with Meredith Whittaker, President of the Signal Foundation, labeling this so-called ‘upload moderation’ as a “rhetorical game” instead.

In September, another version was leaked by Politico. Communications providers would be free to decide whether or not to use artificial intelligence to flag images and text chats as suspicious. These companies, however, would be required by law to scan all user chats and report when they found illegal content.

As per the latest data from the European Pirate Party, the greater majority of countries have already expressed their support for the new proposal. Even nations like France, who previously were among the opposed governments, have now joined the in-favor list.

At the time of writing, only a few EU members remain either undecided (Italy, Portugal, and Finland) or against (Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Estonia, Germany, Luxemburg, Netherlands, Poland, and Slovenia).

This, however, could change after the December 4 meeting.