The European Commission has proposed a new regulation dubbed Chat Control - effectively ending privacy in digital communication for every citizen.

The regulation’s aim is to combat sexual abuse of children, and the method chosen is mandatory chat control - for everyone.

Everyone’s private messages would be filtered, and some of them flagged for further inspection. Complete legal images in hoards will most likely end up here, like innocent family beach photos. It will however also catch images of sexual nature, between consenting adults who will now have their nudes reviewed by a government agency in one way or another. The question is, by who? And how? With countless scandals across the globe regarding employees of agencies and private companies misusing their access to private pictures and information, why would this be any different?

We instead call for a holistic strategy to prevent and prosecute child abuse and depictions of child abuse, without threatening the right to privacy. For example the “notice and take down procedure” based on the US model.