Guest Post: Addressing Misleading Statements From MEPs In The Fight Against Chat Control
The EU’s alarming Chat Control legislation is steaming towards a critical vote on 14th October, 2025. As of today, Maltese MEPs have not rejected the bill outright, and the Sunday Times headline stating that Malta’s MEPs oppose chat control is misleading, to say the least.
Briefly, the proposal mandates mass scanning of all messages – encrypted or not – across platforms like WhatsApp, Signal, you name it. In essence, it’s a surveillance bill dressed up in the rhetoric of ‘child safety’ in an attempt to bypass criticism. You can read more about it here.
False impressions
The Times of Malta article, published August 31st, 2025, claimed that “Malta’s MEPs oppose EU’s ‘chat control’ law.” This headline is misleading. Some Maltese MEPs have indeed been critical of the bill in public, but their proposed amendments fail to address the core issue; that is, treating every citizen as a potential predator and criminal. To the contrary, the amendments double down on the very surveillance systems MEPs claim to oppose.
On the one hand, MEPs like Alex Agius Saliba, Peter Agius and David Casa are seemingly champions of privacy and the European Charter of Fundamental Rights – and that’s worthy of praise. On the other hand, statements from Alex Agius Saliba which suggest ‘limiting scanning of encrypted material to metadata’, per the Times, are ambiguous.
Similarly, Peter Agius’ statements that “we cannot compromise end-to-end-encryption”, followed by calls for “more empowerment for national authorities to access communications in case of reasonable suspicion” are entirely contradictory.
As any technology and security expert will tell you, there is no compromise to be found with encryption.
📣Official statement: the new EU chat controls proposal for mass scanning is the same old surveillance with new branding.
Whether you call it a backdoor, a front door, or “upload moderation” it undermines encryption & creates significant vulnerabilitieshttps://t.co/g0xNNKqquA pic.twitter.com/3L1hqbBRgq
— Meredith Whittaker (@mer__edith) June 17, 2024
It either does what it says on the tin, or it isn’t encryption. There is no in between or compromise.
Doublespeak or ignorance?
The public-relations comments by our MEPs, uncritically echoed in the Sunday Times are in stark contrast to the contents of the bill as well as the proposed amendments.
As outlined in the official EU document (PE746.811v01-00), the amendments paint a clear picture: MEPs are in favour of scanning your text messages; a capability which does not currently exist.
Consider Amendment 13, which calls scanning orders a “last resort” if providers refuse to cooperate, or Amendment 110, which says that the provider must already have “mitigation measures” in place, and if said measures are deemed “insufficient” (another vague term), then an “order” can be sent out to mandate scanning without clear justification.
Amendment 15 claims detection orders will be “targeted and justified” for specific users or services. But the use of “or” instead of “and” means orders don’t need justification if they target a service – like an entire chat application.
In addition, references to ‘content moderation’ and ‘removal of the content’ in other sections would not make sense unless the capacity to spy on citizens wasn’t baked into the system, i.e. a back door.
This doesn’t sound like opposition.
Indeed, these amendments are superficial, failing to tackle the core issue: Chat Control mandates client-side scanning, which sabotages end-to-end encryption by analysing messages on your device before encryption occurs. It is a back door disguised in layered lawyer-speak about protecting children.
This is the premise you’re invited to believe in order to give up your right to privacy enshrined in the European Charter of Fundamental Rights, particularly Article 7, which guarantees respect for private and family life, and Article 8, which protects personal data.
The feigned opposition to Chat Control by our MEPs in the Sunday Times article obscures the stakes, and misinforms the public as to their true position.
The tip of the iceberg
Even the EU’s own Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) said the EU could be at a point of no return should lawmakers go ahead with passing a law that mandates the systemic, mass surveillance of private messaging. In one seminar, he said the Commission’s proposal could bring consequences that go “well beyond the concerns with the protection of children”.
End-to-end encryption ensures that only you and the recipient see a message, as is the case when you’re chatting with someone in your living room (or anywhere for that matter). Client-side scanning means ‘providers’ processes the data before encryption, bypassing standard security.
But that’s not all. Chat Control doesn’t just threaten end-to-end encryption, it proposes to compromise the very architecture of all our communication infrastructure.
Neither the public nor private sector can afford to allow technological, hard-coded guarantees to be swapped out for empty political promises, no matter the premise. The risk for abuse is simply too great, and the supposed benefits non-existent.
Surface-level opposition to the bill gives one impression, but when you dig into the amendments, it’s clear that vague language, loopholes, and the fundamentally wrong premise of Chat Control remain unopposed by our esteemed MEPs.
Protecting citizens
Mind you, protecting children is certainly a noble endeavour, but Chat Control is the wrong approach. And indeed, if you truly want to protect citizens, especially children, then protect their future by not allowing their private lives to be compromised because of a few bad apples.
As of today, Malta’s representatives are apparently pandering to both sides – saying one thing in public without rejecting the bill entirely in the European Council. Meanwhile, official opposition to Chat Control has doubled in the last two weeks; the Czech Republic, Poland, Belgium, Austria, the Netherlands, Finland, and Belgium all oppose it; but Malta remains on the fence, leaning towards tacit approval through misguided amendments instead of outright rejection.
As such, I invite you to demand that our MEPs and government truly protect citizens – young, old and everyone in between – and join their colleagues in rejecting the bill completely by 14th October.
Christopher Attard is an opinion writer