The European Union has taken a step back—though not a definitive retreat—in its attempt to impose the so-called chat control, a regulation that sought to force digital platforms to scan all private messages for child sexual abuse material (CSAM).
The Danish presidency of the EU Council, under pressure from several member states, including Germany, announced that the proposal would no longer be mandatory but instead adopted voluntarily by individual countries.
Danish Justice Minister Peter Hummelgaard explained that “the new compromise will not include mandatory detection orders but will allow tech companies to continue voluntary searches for illegal material.”
The move follows weeks of criticism from governments, digital rights experts, and privacy advocates, who warned that the initiative posed a clear risk of “mass surveillance” of millions of Europeans’ private communications.
The draft law, originally pushed by the European Commission in 2022, aimed to compel encrypted services such as WhatsApp, Signal, and Telegram to scan images, videos, and messages for potential abuse cases. From the start, critics dubbed it “the digital spying law.” Germany, Austria, and the Netherlands strongly opposed the plan, warning that it violated the most fundamental principles of European law on privacy and data protection.
A partial victory for freedom
The Danish retreat has been welcomed as a major victory for civil liberties and digital privacy. Organizations such as the Signal Foundation and the European Data Ethics Council hailed the decision as “a defense of the right to communicate without being watched.” Yet the relief is only partial: the Danish presidency has not ruled out bringing the chat control proposal back once a favorable majority is secured in the Council.
In fact, Hummelgaard himself admitted that his priority is to maintain some form of voluntary regime “to avoid losing a key tool in the fight against child abuse,” noting that the current legislation allowing voluntary scanning will expire in April 2026. In other words, dropping the mandatory element does not mean abandoning the idea—it is merely a pause.
The chat control proposal is not an isolated case. It forms part of a broader trend in Brussels toward digital control and centralized supervision of information. We saw it with the Digital Services Act, the attempt to censor ‘harmful’ online content, and with plans to create a single European digital identity. Each step is presented as a measure ‘for security’ or ‘for the common good,’ but in practice, it erodes both national sovereignty and individual rights.
This episode shows that the resistance of certain national governments—led in this case by Germany and supported by several northern and eastern countries—can still hold back Brussels’ technocratic excesses. But it also sends a clear warning: EU institutions rarely abandon their projects; they simply postpone them until they have secured enough political support.
