"In May, the European Commission once again presented its proposal. Yet several states objected. That included Germany, but also Poland, Austria and the Netherlands. As a result, Denmark, which currently holds the rotating presidency of the European Council, immediately began drafting a new version, known as “Chat Control 2.0” and unveiled earlier this month, which removed the requirement for general monitoring of private chats; the searches would now remain formally voluntary for providers. All this happened under the auspices of Coreper, the Committee of Permanent Representatives — one of the most powerful, but least visible, institutions in the EU decision-making process. It is where most EU legislation is actually negotiated; if Coreper agrees on a legislative file, member states almost always rubber-stamp it.
The gamble worked. Yesterday, this revised version was quietly greenlit by Coreper, essentially paving the way for the text’s adoption by the Council, possibly as early as December. As digital rights campaigner and former MEP Patrick Breyer put it, this manoeuvre amounts to “a deceptive sleight of hand” aimed at bypassing meaningful democratic debate and oversight.
While the removal of mandatory on-device detection is an improvement on the first draft, the new text still contains two extremely problematic features. First, it encourages “voluntary” mass scanning by online platforms — a practice already allowed in “temporary” form, which would now become a lasting feature of EU law. Second, it effectively outlaws anonymous communication by introducing mandatory age-verification systems."
https://unherd.com/2025/11/europes-new-war-on-privacy/
#EU #Europe #ChatControl #Privacy #AgeVerification #PoliceState #MassScanning
