Council of European IT Experts CEPIS Calls on EU Institutions to Uphold Parliament’s Decision and Reject Mass Surveillance in the Chat Control Regulation

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Since the ‘chat control’ proposal was first presented, CEPIS has been repeatedly insisting that renewing blanket scanning powers would represent a fundamental breach of privacy rights for 450 million Europeans while failing to deliver meaningful child protection outcomes:

No proven effectiveness: The European Commission’s own 2025 report has found no demonstrated link between mass scanning of private messages and successful prosecutions or child rescues. Offenders can easily evade these measures by shifting to unscanned platforms.

High error rates and technical unreliability: AI‑based classifiers for images and text show error rates of up to 20%, while research has demonstrated that widely used perceptual hashing systems such as PhotoDNA can be manipulated to evade detection or generate false reports. These systems cannot assess context or intent and risk overwhelming law‑enforcement authorities with non‑actionable alerts.

Legal pathways already exist: Even without the extension of Chat Control 1.0, police retain full capability to scan public posts and hosted content, perform targeted interception with judicial oversight, and act on user reports—ensuring no “legal gap” in child‑protection efforts.

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