Internal European Union documents reported by Heise on September 29 have renewed the dispute over whether rules intended to combat child sexual abuse could enable broad scanning of private messages. According to the report, member states are considering a mechanism called “search plans” ahead of negotiations with the European Parliament.
Heise says the proposal would allow national judicial bodies or independent administrative authorities to give chat and email providers temporary, broad authorizations to examine message content. The Council’s position is reportedly intended to preserve existing voluntary scanning practices used by some large platforms under a temporary EU framework. The leaked material itself was not included in the supplied evidence, so the description depends on Heise’s account of the documents.
The plan has drawn opposition from former member of the European Parliament Patrick Breyer, a civil-rights activist who argues that authorizing scans across all or part of a service would still expose communications belonging to large numbers of people who are not suspected of wrongdoing. He characterizes the search-plan label as a change in presentation rather than a move away from mass surveillance.
Legal durability is a central point of contention. Heise reports that the Council’s Legal Service previously warned that scanning an entire service, or broad sections of one, would be highly likely to conflict with EU law as general and indiscriminate surveillance. Breyer argues that adopting a rule vulnerable to being overturned by the European Court of Justice would ultimately undermine investigations as well as privacy rights.
The reported Council material also describes an alternative if negotiators fail to agree on scanning private chats. Under that approach, private messaging could be removed from the permanent regulation, leaving the current temporary arrangement for voluntary scanning in place. Breyer has urged Parliament not to accept a permanent settlement while that transitional framework remains available.
The European Parliament’s negotiating position is described as more targeted. It includes orders focused on specific people or groups where there is concrete suspicion and judicial oversight, alongside privacy settings designed to reduce unsolicited contact. The approach would also create an EU center tasked with finding known abuse material in publicly accessible content.
Another disputed issue is the volume and usefulness of platform reports. Heise says roughly 75% of reported chats are legally irrelevant and notes that German investigations can involve adolescents in consensual sexting cases. Critics say false alarms consume investigative capacity that could otherwise be directed toward victims and serious offenders.
The reported documents do not represent a final law. Any regulation still depends on negotiations among EU institutions, and the eventual wording could change. The immediate development is therefore a contested Council strategy entering the negotiating process, with child protection, privacy, technical feasibility and compliance with EU court precedent all unresolved.
