Chat Control: Let's take a look into everything!

What if the authorities looked through all your mail and listened to every phone call you made? This is what the Swedish Member of Parliament (MP) Niels Paarup-Petersen (Swedish Center Party) compares the proposal of Chat Control to in a written question to the Swedish Minister of Justice Gunnar Strömmer (the Moderate Party). Though this could be considered an exaggeration, it is a good example illustrating just how criticized the proposed Chat Control is.  

The proposal made in the European Union (EU) called the "Regulation to Prevent and Combat Child Sexual Abuse" (or the CSAM regulation) but more commonly referred to, especially by critics, simply as "Chat Control" includes the surveillance of private communication. The idea is that digital platforms, like WhatsApp and Snapchat, scan all communication  including private communication. If any material of sexual abuse against children is found, these platforms would have to report it. The hopes behind implementing this is preventing and combating sexual exploitation and abuse of children which occurs on the internet. 

The CSAM regulation proposal was first presented in 2022 by the Swedish EU Commissioner Ylva Johansson (Swedish Social Democrats). It immediately faced plenty of critique and parts of the proposal had to be adjusted. According to the Swedish government the adjustments made to the proposal included a better chance for users of affected platforms to give their consent. It was also reported that monitoring would be limited to photos, videos and links. Following these changes the Swedish government agreed to move forward with the proposal.

Despite this decision not everyone was on board with the idea. In 2022, MP Niels Paarup-Petersen of the Swedish Center party showed discontent in a written question to the Swedish Minister of Justice Gunnar Strömmer. Later, in 2024 after the initial proposal had been adjusted, another member of the Swedish Center party, Ulrika Liljeberg, also came forward with criticism. She told the Swedish public news outlet SVT Nyheter that though the Center party views the blockage of child pornography being spread as important, they were worried about encryption being broken. Encryption being broken could cause harm to people in vulnerable situations that need access to encrypted ways of communication. She goes on to say that in the version of the proposal that was being presented at the time there was no confirmation that encryption would not be broken.  

In 2024 the CSAM regulation proposal was supposed to be brought up again in the EU, but there was a lot of disagreement surrounding it from different EU member states. In the end, the proposal never made it as far as even being brought up in a meeting, it was instead removed from the agenda at the last minute. After this happened it was reported that the proposal needed to be reworked again before it would be brought up for negotiation. 

The proposal faces broad criticism, but one argument unites the opposition: Chat Control is a type of surveillance and an invasion of privacy. In an open letter to the Danish parliament a group of Danish citizens expressed their wish for Denmark to vote 'no' to Chat Control. They viewed that under no circumstances should there be a law instigating general monitoring of citizens. They recognise the need for protecting children but believe that doing so should not involve challenging the basic rights to private communication and digital security included in the constitution of Denmark and the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. 

The Swedish Professor Stefan Axelsson, specialized in digital forensics and cybersecurity at Stockholm University, was interviewed by SVT Nyheter about the Chat Control proposal.  He also recognizes Chat Control as a type of surveillance and agrees that it is an invasion of privacy. Axelsson goes on to say that it is very likely that intelligence services around the world would get access to otherwise private information because encryption would be impossible with Chat Control. According to him it is useless for combating sexual exploitation of children on the internet since many pedophiles use the Darknet. 

"Not even the East German security service Stasi had surveillance at this level,” Professor Axelsson said when describing Chat Control.

Professor Stefan Axelsson is not the only professor who criticises Chat Control. In a letter signed by 465 researchers and professors from 38 different countries, it is advised against implementing Chat Control. In the letter it is mentioned that there is no current technology to make Chat Control actually work. A worry about end-to-end encryption being weakened is also brought up. Weakened end-to-end encryption could result in challenges with data protection and cybersecurity since encryption is what protects us from identity theft, cyber attacks, and more. In other words, poor security on the internet puts some of our fundamental rights at risk because private information and communication no longer would be protected.

Associate Professor Diego F. Aranha at the Department of Computer Science at Aarhus University in Denmark is one of the many people that signed the letter. In a comment for Katte Gazette, Aranha told me that while he believes it should be a core societal value to protect children, he does not think Chat Control would help. He voiced his concern that it would put suspicion on every citizen and take resources away from actual child protection.

"I see it as the latest attempt at building a textbook mass surveillance machine that rivals some of the most authoritarian regimes on the planet, despite the apparent good intentions," he stated.

Another one of his concerns is that the main proponents of Chat Control have shared their intention of expanding it to target other types of communication and crimes. 

"I am certain this expansion will happen as soon as it [Chat Control] is shown to be ineffective, as it happens to most surveillance apparatus in practice," Associate Professor Aranha told me at the end of his comment. 

Interestingly, the Chat Control proposal is actually not the only one of its kind. In Denmark, the country that currently holds the EU presidency, a similar legislation proposal has been put forward. The proposal is about letting Politiets Efterretningstjeneste (PET), the Danish security and intelligence service, have access to Danish citizens' digital footprints. A digital footprint is left by almost everything we do; from posting on social media to borrowing a book at the library. Having access to this information is supposed to help PET carry out its duties of, for example, preventing terrorist attacks. Similarly to Chat Control this proposal has met strong criticism and many call it a form of mass surveillance.

At the moment nothing is certain about the CSAM regulation proposal. Denmark is currently  working hard trying to get a new version of the proposal ready so that the EU member states can reach some sort of agreement. Many countries including Finland and Poland, are skeptical towards the proposal which means that whether or not Chat Control will be implemented is unclear. As for Sweden, despite the harsh words from members of the Swedish Center Party, the government's outlook on the proposal is in general positive. The question is just: Will letting everyone take a look into everything really keep children safe or is it simply mass surveillance disguised as good intentions?