Overview
- EU permanent representatives approved the Council's negotiating mandate for the Child Sexual Abuse regulation after a Danish compromise removed any immediate requirement to scan private messages.
- Italy abstained in the vote, while the Czech Republic, the Netherlands and Poland opposed; Germany's support proved decisive in reaching a qualified majority.
- The text keeps detection voluntary under the existing temporary framework and instructs the European Commission to assess whether future detection obligations should be proposed.
- Providers would face duties such as risk mitigation, prevention measures, and removal or blocking of illegal content, and the plan includes creating a European center to support implementation.
- Privacy-focused platforms including Proton and Signal, as well as Meta, have warned of risks to end-to-end encryption and user privacy, with some analyses cautioning that measures like age verification could erode online anonymity.