EU Council approves Chat Control mandate for negotiation with Parliament

Legislative Status and What Was Actually Decided

• The Council agreed on its position to take into trilogue with Parliament; this is not yet law.
• Scanning is framed as “voluntary” and focused on providing channels for victims, with no explicit obligation to break or bypass encryption.
• The draft explicitly states it must not weaken or require access to end‑to‑end encryption, nor mandate decryption.
• Some commenters see this as a significant win compared to earlier drafts that aimed at mandatory chat scanning; others see it as only a tactical retreat.

Privacy, Encryption, and “High-Risk” Providers

• The core concern is the new regime of “risk assessments” and “high-risk” classifications overseen by authorities.
• “High-risk” criteria include encrypted messaging, P2P, anonymous/pseudonymous accounts, lack of identity verification, lack of pre‑moderation, and strong privacy jurisdictions.
• Providers designated “high risk” must “contribute to technologies to mitigate risks,” widely interpreted as a path to client-side scanning and de facto backdoors via regulatory pressure, not explicit text.
• Many warn of a slow “boiling the frog” dynamic: voluntary today, functionally mandatory over time through compliance ratchets and a growing enforcement/compliance industry.

EU Governance, Democracy, and Scope

• Large subthread debates whether the EU was meant as a trade bloc or an “ever closer union,” and whether this extends legitimately to regulating private communications.
• Strong disagreement over how democratic the EU is: some emphasize Parliament, Council, and national governments’ roles; others point to the Commission’s agenda-setting power, trilogues, and perceived “rubber stamp” dynamics.
• Tension between EU‑level rules and national constitutions is highlighted; some expect courts like the ECJ/ECHR and national constitutional courts to be crucial checks.

Civil Liberties, Effectiveness, and Activism

• Many see mass scanning proposals as disproportionate, especially given existing laws against CSAM and examples of lenient sentencing offline.
• Frequent fear that “protect the children” is being used as political cover for generalized surveillance, potentially usable against “enemies of the state.”
• Some describe the current outcome (no mandated scanning, E2EE still legal) as democracy working under pressure; others see an ongoing legitimacy crisis and expect the issue to keep returning.
• Suggested responses include protests, supporting digital rights NGOs, relying on open-source, decentralised, E2EE tools, and preparing for jurisdictional workarounds via private or non‑public communication systems.