Member States of theEuropean Union The October 14th Next will be called to formally express their position on a proposal of regulation that could radically change the way we communicate online. It is the so -called Chat Controlthe regulation to prevent and combat sexual abuse on minors, whose official name is enclosed by the abbreviation Csar (Child Sexual Abuse Regulation). The idea behind the regulation is as simple as controversial: to force the messaging and e -mail platforms a scaning every message, image or video, before it is sent and encryptedto check if it contains child pornography or adaptation attempts addressed to minors. The declared purpose is to protect minors from very serious abuses, but the method proposed opens a heated discussion on the future of digital privacy in the EU territory. At the moment, the opinions of the individual European states are conflicting with about ten countries that oppose (Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium), some are undecided and about fifteen seem to be favorable including Italy, France and Spain.
How it works chat control
The regulation Csar It was presented for the first time in the Spring of 2022 From the then European commissioner to internal affairs, the Swedish Ylva Johansson. The stated goal would be to prevent platforms such as WhatsApp, Telegram or Gmail are used to spread Polesage images or to try theonline adaptation of minors. To do this, applications should integrate a Content preventive analysis system: each text message would be evaluated by algorithms capable of identifying Suspicious phraseswhile the images should be checked through hash. Comparing the results of these preventive checks with data and information present in the databases managed by the police, an automatic reporting to the authorities in the event that correspondences were found with the materials related to the world of pedophilia and child pornography would be triggered.
From a technical point of view, this procedure is called client side scan: means that control takes place directly from the service providers Before that the message is encrypted and sent to the recipient. In this way, the end-to-end encryption would lose most of its usefulnessbecause the content has already been read and analyzed before being encrypted. Many experts underline how this dynamic is actually equivalent to introducing one backdoorthat is, a hidden access door that could be exploited by third parties: governments, intelligence services, IT criminals, and others. Even if the supporters of the regulation ensure that the system would work locally and anonymously, doubts remain on any security flaws and the real protection of personal data.
A particularly discussed point concerns the risk of false positives: non -perfect algorithms could report as suspicious conversations that actually do not contain anything illegal, exposing private communications to undue controls, including those between teenagers. Even if the platforms should theoretically anonymize data up to an official verification by the authorities, uncertainty remains strong on how these processes would work in practice.
The position of international governments and organizations
A coalition of across 60 international organizationsknown as Eclag (European Child Sexual Abuse Legislation Advocacy Group), strongly supports the initiative, considering it one indispensable tool To stem the spread of child pornography and protect minors. Associations for digital rights such as theEffort (Electronic Frontier Foundation), on the other hand, denounce the risk that once created, a preventive surveillance system can also be used for other purposes, such as the Control of communications from journalists, activists or political opponentsespecially in countries with authoritarian governments.
The positions of the individual European states reflect the aforementioned divisions. At the moment there are about ten countries that seem to be contrary to the proposal: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland and Slovakia. Countries like Greece, Romania and Slovenia, however, remain undecided. Countries such as Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, France, Hungary, Ireland, ItalyLatvia, Lithuania, Malta, Portugal, Spain and Sweden, seem to be in favor of the proposal.
Also the European Parliament It is deeply divided. THE green parties And social-liberal they expressed one firm oppositionclaiming that “Protecting children online is possible without mass surveillance». Also some right -wing groups, such as Patriots for Europethey echoed this critic European Popular Party They raised concerns related to the protection of private communications. The result is a transversal front that makes it difficult to predict what the outcome of the formal votewhich could take place the October 14th.
There Denmarkwhich holds the presidency on duty, declared the will to push for an agreement, so as to then start the negotiations with the Parliament. If the regulation is approved, digital platforms will have to radically rethink the way they manage user privacy. If, on the other hand, the need to find alternative strategies to combat a problem that remains urgent and dramatic will open.
