A just cause… a shameful method
Protect children from online predators? Yes, a thousand times yes. But monitor every message, every photo, every file exchanged between ordinary citizens? No, never.
And yet that’s exactly what Chat Control proposes. Behind reassuring, well-meaning rhetoric, we’re being set up with a scanning machine built directly into our phones, computers and tablets, able to examine every piece of content before it’s even encrypted.
The problem is that once this spy is in place, there’s no such thing as truly private communication anymore. It breaks trust in the tools we use every day, and opens the door to blanket surveillance.
Chat Control, explained
The idea is simple… and terrifying: impose client-side scanning on every messaging app, whether it’s end-to-end encrypted or not. WhatsApp, Signal, Messenger, iMessage, emails… nothing would escape the scan.
In practice:
- encryption is emptied of its substance, since your data is read before it’s encrypted;
- every device becomes a surveillance agent;
- privacy no longer exists, even between people close to you.
Why this is a disaster waiting to happen
Putting everyone under surveillance by default means treating every citizen as a suspect. That’s the very definition of mass surveillance.
Then there’s security: a client-side scanner is a deliberate backdoor. And every backdoor ends up being exploited, by hackers, foreign states, or even internal abuse.
Its effectiveness, meanwhile, is largely an illusion. These systems are riddled with false positives. They’ll ruin the lives of innocent people while real criminals find other ways around the scan.
And then there’s the slippery slope. Today, the argument is CSAM (Child Sexual Abuse Material). But once the infrastructure is in place… who decides what gets scanned tomorrow? Political opinions? “Undesirable” content? We know how it starts, we never know how it ends.
The “protecting children” argument
Of course protecting children is a priority. But this project uses that cause as a Trojan horse to push through an unacceptable measure.
There are, however, effective alternatives that don’t involve spying on everyone:
- strengthening targeted investigations,
- properly funding specialized units,
- improving international cooperation,
- quickly removing reported content.
Real protection comes from targeted action, not universal surveillance.
Where things stand
Chat Control already failed in 2024… but it’s back in 2025 with growing support. A vote is planned for the autumn. Nothing is settled yet, but the window to act is closing.
My take
I find this project shameful. It sacrifices the privacy of millions of people for an uncertain result, and in the process sets an extremely dangerous precedent for the future.
Protecting children, yes, that needs to happen. But not by turning every phone into a permanent spying device.