Germany speaks out against “chat control” proposal

Germany’s Digital Committee is opposed to the current child sexual abuse material (CSAM) regulation, also known as the “chat control” proposal.

The European Commission wants to introduce a law requiring chat services to monitor all messages sent by their users.

In the past three years, numerous proposals have been discussed at the EU level, but an agreement still hasn’t been reached. This has to do with the fact that implementing client-side scanning requires weakening encryption. A majority of the EU Member States disagree and insist that encryption remains intact.

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The current proposal calls for phones to be pre-installed with software to detect CSAM content before users send it. This would require scanning to take place on the phone itself.

Germany argues that the current proposal is too much of a violation of user privacy. The country is pushing for a “united compromise proposal” that would be acceptable to more countries.

“A uniform legal basis in the EU is urgently needed because the situation is worrisome. Private, confidential exchanges must continue to be private. At the same time, there is an obligation to counteract child abuse online. The aim of the black-red coalition is therefore to achieve a united stance between the departments,” a German representative of the Federal Ministry of the Interior stated in a press release.

In June, a coalition of international nonprofit organizations, including Amnesty International Germany and Chaos Computer Club (CCC), called on the German government to vote against European proposals that would introduce chat control.

“End-to-end encryption is an indispensable foundation for digital security. It protects the confidential communication of all people, companies and authorities and ensures the integrity of democratic institutions. Deliberately weakening encryption undermines trust in digital infrastructures and opens attack vectors to state and criminal actors,” the coalition wrote in an open letter addressed to the German government.

Last month, the Belgian coalition party N-VA opposed the current proposal’s idea of chat control.

“The goal is, of course, legitimate, but chat control threatens to become a monster that invades your privacy and that you can no longer tame,” N-VA Member of Parliament Michael Freilich told Belgian news outlet Het Laatste Nieuws.

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