Chat Control

The Regulation to Prevent and Combat Child Sexual Abuse (Child Sexual Abuse Regulation, or CSAR), commonly known as Chat Control, is a European Union regulation proposed by the European Commissioner for Home Affairs Ylva Johansson on 11 May 2022. The stated aim of the legislation is to prevent child sexual abuse online through the implementation of a number of measures, including the establishment of a framework that would make the detection and reporting of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) through ubiquitous surveillance by digital platforms a legal requirement within the European Union.

Civil society organisations argue that the proposal would effectively mandate mass scanning of all private digital communications, undermining end-to-end encryption and violating fundamental rights to privacy and data protection through enabling generalized, indiscriminate surveillance. Expert assessments, including a European Parliament study, conclude that there is currently no technological way to detect CSAM without unacceptably high error rates, leading to large numbers of false positives affecting ordinary, lawful communications.

As of November 2025, the state of the proposal is uncertain, with Denmark, which assumed the presidency of the Council of the European Union in July 2025, having backed down on making the interception and scanning of content mandatory.