Denmark wants to introduce a general European order to scan private messages

Source and original text: Chiara Castro / Techradar.com

Information has leaked that the European Parliament is trying to reach an agreement on the controversial application regarding scanning of messages in terms of online materials related to the sexual use of children (CSAM – child sexual abuse material).

According to the information provided by the Netzpolitik Group, dealing with the rights of digital services users, the EU Parliament during the meeting of July 11, threatened to block the extension of the temporary regulation that allows voluntary scanning of user messages, at the discretion of the providers of such services. The parliament is to block this regulation until the European Council agrees to the mandatory scanning of all messages.

According to Patrick Breyer, a former member of the European Parliament:

This political blackmail forces the introduction of a bad solution and conflicts with the current position of the European Parliament itself regarding mass content scanning on the Internet.

Denmark again presented a bill on its first day of its presidency in the European Union. New rules for scanning messages in Europe may be conducted at the earliest on October 14, 2025.

In the sake of reminder: the first proposal of this type, chat control, appeared in May 2022 and was aimed at stopping the spread of CSAM content on the Internet by scanning all communication, especially encrypted. However, as time passed, subsequent activists, experts, and even the politicians themselves began to express their fears and skepticism towards the proposed changes.

The main reservations concerned the weakening of encryption security, which is a key safety foundation for such applications and services as WhatsApp, Signal and Proton Mail.

Pursuant to this first version of the Act, all providers of software for sending messages would be required to conduct a mandatory, unlimited scanning of private user messages in order to detect CSAM content. The act met with sharp opposition, which resulted in a ban on all legal attempts to weaken the encryption of messages in Europe, introduced on the part of the European Court of Human Rights.

In June 2024, Belgium proposed a compromise that was to apply only to shared photos, films and URLs with the consent of the users.

In February 2025, Poland proposed to introduce voluntary in the matter of scanning of encrypted chats and classifying them as “preventive measures”.

However, according to Breyer, the Danish proposal is so far “The most radical version”.

This proposal includes mandatory mass scanning of private communication and aims to break safe encryption by forcing the customer’s side to be scanned in applications for sending messages. Interestingly, government and military accounts will be released from this invasive and unreliable scan. – he explains.

The leak also confirms that the Legal Faculty of the EU Council still believes that the current proposal violates the basic rights of Europeans, because “Basic problems related to access to communication means for potentially all users remained unchanged”.

Moreover, many countries that opposed the control of chat in 2024 now seem to lead to agreement. Among the countries that support the Danish proposal, there are Italy, Spain and Hungary. France also stated that “Basically, he can support this proposal”.

Countries such as: Belgium, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Slovenia, Luxembourg and Romania have still not made a decision or point out that it will be necessary to consider this issue in their parliaments.

All countries must make a decision until September 12, when the next meeting will take place. However, the goal is the final debate on the bill, which will take place on October 14.

It is certain, however, that the pursuit of legal access to encrypted citizens is currently one of the main priorities of the EU legislators. At the end of June, the European Commission also published the first step as part of its new Protecteu strategy, which by 2030 is to enable law enforcement authorities to decrypt private citizens’ data.