The European Union is once again debating whether it wants to analyze our private conversations

The controversial proposal of the CSAM (Child Sexual Abuse Material) by the European Union is once again in the spotlight. The latest development regarding the law occurred in October 2024, when the matter was withdrawn from debate due to the abstention of the Netherlands. Two months later, the law is being debated again today, December 4, 2024.

With this law, the aim is to implement mass scanning tools in messaging and email services to identify and stop the dissemination of illegal material related to child sexual abuse.

The proposal, originally presented in May 2022, suggested the use of client side-scanning, a technique that allows analyzing messages directly on users’ devices before they are encrypted. This approach would involve breaking the end-to-end encryption that protects messages sent within applications like WhatsApp or Signal.

This approach has sparked a wave of criticism from privacy experts, tech companies, and political sectors, who describe it as a direct attack on user privacy.

According to TechRadar, the vast majority of countries have already expressed their support for the new law proposal, but many others, such as Italy or Finland, remain undecided. The final outcome of the debate, which will be held today, remains to be seen.

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