Privacy campaigners are speaking out again against the European Union’s Chat Control plan. They warn that the rules could expose millions of people to close digital surveillance. Supporters say the plan would protect children from abuse online.
Adina Portaru, Europe director at ADF International, shared these fears in an article published on October 26, 2026. She argued that the plan could let authorities monitor private chats while they chase that goal. The talks to finalize the law have not reached a deal.
The fight comes down to one question. Should a law let systems look inside private chats to find abuse material? Privacy groups say the risk to ordinary users is too high. EU lawmakers and member states have not found common ground.
Privacy group warns of wide message checks
According to Portaru, the proposal threatens privacy and democratic freedoms. She described it as a danger for people across Europe. She warned that artificial intelligence (AI) could read through people’s messages. The AI would look for content that may be illegal and flag anything suspicious. However, the permanent law is still under negotiation. Nobody has settled how far any future scanning rules would go.
Portaru also raised safety concerns. She said tools built to inspect messages could weaken encryption. Encryption is the lock that keeps private messages safe from outsiders. With end-to-end encryption, only the sender and the receiver can read a message. A weaker lock could give criminals new ways to reach sensitive information.
ADF International says wide message scanning could harm the privacy of European citizens. Critics also fear false alarms. A scanning tool could mistakenly flag innocent users. Their private chats might then face closer checks. These worries reach beyond the plan’s stated purpose. Opponents say a tool built to protect children should not put everyday users at risk.
Concerns over digital privacy and security have also prompted action in the United States, where the House of Representatives prohibited TikTok use by lawmakers and staff.
Many people call the plan Chat Control. Its formal name is the proposed regulation to prevent and combat child sexual abuse online. The European Commission introduced it in 2022. The plan has three main aims. First, it wants to help find child sexual abuse material. Second, it targets the online grooming of children. Third, it seeks better reports of suspected offences.
Supporters say the rules would help police find victims. They would also help officers track down offenders who share illegal material on digital platforms. According to the European Commission, the plan includes safeguards to protect basic rights. Privacy groups still worry about scanning private chats. Their main fear involves users who face no suspicion of any wrongdoing.
EU lawmakers fail to agree on private messages
The European Parliament and the Council of the European Union remain split over the permanent law. They disagree on how it should treat private messages. The two sides held their sixth political negotiating meeting on September 29, 2026. Reports say they failed to agree on finding illegal material in private chats.
The talks did bring some progress. Both sides moved forward on the planned EU center that would handle child sexual abuse issues. That centre is a separate part of the proposal. Its work focuses on addressing child sexual abuse. Lawmakers can build on this progress as talks continue. The same cannot yet be said for private messages.
The dispute centers on who should face checks. One option targets specific suspects. The other lets online service providers scan more broadly. The European Parliament has pushed for a more targeted approach. Disagreements with member states have blocked a final deal on private communications.
More talks are expected. However, officials have not confirmed the date of the next political meeting. The debate shows a hard task for European lawmakers. They want to protect children from online abuse. They also want to respect privacy, free speech, and the safety of digital messages.
Temporary EU rule does not order scanning of every message
Some claims say the EU has already ordered authorities to scan every message. Those claims are wrong. The EU has not adopted the permanent plan. The exact scope of future detection duties remains disputed.
A separate, temporary EU rule took effect on July 31, 2026. It lets online service providers find and report child sexual abuse material on a voluntary basis. Voluntary means each company chooses for itself whether to scan. This permission runs until April 3, 2028. The rule leaves out messages protected by end-to-end encryption. It also imposes no general duty on governments to scan every citizen’s messages.
ADF International and other opponents disagree with the plan. They say it risks giving surveillance tools too large a role in private life. EU institutions, meanwhile, keep negotiating a framework to address child sexual abuse online. Until both sides reach a deal and adopt the permanent law, the rules for future detection remain unsettled.
