Guest Post: Chat Control – The EU Wants To Scan All Your Texts By October
The European Union is stealthily advancing a surveillance nightmare known as the Chat Control legislation, which will indiscriminately scan all private messages for ‘suspicious’ content.
This legislation, officially titled the Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council laying down rules to prevent and combat child sexual abuse (bill number 52022PC0209), was first proposed by the European Commission on May 11, 2022, and has since evolved through amendments and negotiations, with a potential implementation date as early as October 2025.
Locally, the bill has slipped through without a shred of public debate. In fact, the Maltese citizenry is largely oblivious to this impending radical overhaul of their digital lives. This is not a distant concern—it’s a major threat that’s right around the corner.
The plan is straightforward: communication providers will be ordered to scan every message you send. Picture a policeman listening in on every conversation you have in your living room. The digital equivalent of this scenario is what’s on the table. Unfortunately, the comparison is not hyperbole.
This inverts the bedrock legal principle of “innocence until proven guilty”. Traditionally, law enforcement requires reasonable suspicion to investigate an individual, but Chat Control discards that entirely. Every chat, email, and file will be siphoned into vast databases, flagged by algorithms and rules that can shift on a whim.
The system’s design will leave no stone unturned—your words will be scanned before you even hit send, all under the guise of protecting children. Yet, experts from the Association of German Criminal Investigators and the Institute for Cybercriminology at Brandenburg Police University, among others, have long warned that this blanket approach won’t catch predators effectively.
The real perpetrators who are aware of their crimes will simply use alternative communication methods.
Flawed Justifications
The latest official line claims this involves only metadata scanning, sparing the content of your encrypted messages. However, the reality starkly differs. The legislation mandates scanning all data, including unencrypted content, business secrets and sensitive data on your device before it’s sent.
Encryption is black and white. It is either a cornerstone of digital security or a systemic security risk where providers must store and process your every word. No regulator can guarantee that citizens’ rights will be upheld if the underlying technology is deliberately compromised in the name of safety.
Impact on Maltese businesses
Malta’s e-commerce, gaming and fintech sectors rely on secure client communications and confidentiality to thrive. Chat Control’s mandate to scan all messages threatens to expose sensitive deal negotiations, financial data and client information to breaches, like the 2025 Tea app leak that splashed 13,000 IDs online.
Amendments suggest this could be enforced as a “last resort” or “preventive measure”, but the loopholes are glaring. If a provider resists—or even if their existing safeguards are deemed insufficient—orders can escalate, forcing widespread monitoring.
Each member state could greenlight this intrusion, turning your phone into a surveillance device under the pretext of combating child exploitation. Meanwhile, targeted, evidence-based approaches have been sidelined for a mass surveillance system ripe for abuse.
History proves that broad monitoring invites overreach – governments and corporations have leaked sensitive data or suffered data breaches time and again. The safest database is the one that’s never created.
Shifting goalposts
Exposing your private life to hackers and bad actors isn’t the only concern either. This law would also compromise political dissidents, potential whistle-blowers, and those with minority views.
Are we really willing to invert the relationship with our public servants in the name of safety?
If the potential for abuse is baked into the system, then it will be abused. Indeed, it’s hard to conclude that Chat Control isn’t about blanket surveillance powers cloaked in all-too-familiar ‘save the children’ rhetoric. Not long ago, we were told surveillance was necessary to fight terrorism. The goalposts keep shifting, suggesting ‘child safety’ is merely the latest excuse to roll out legislation with little to no redeeming qualities.
Politicians (MEPs) insist on a “balanced compromise”, yet their words reveal a disconnect that borders on incompetence or ulterior motives. The notion that scanning can be limited to specific users or services is not just technically incorrect—modern messaging platforms rely on end-to-end encryption and integrated systems that make targeted scanning practically impossible without compromising everyone’s data—but further undermined by vague wording that invites abuse. As ‘mission creep’ sets in, mass scanning under the thinnest pretexts will become commonplace.
Age verification and keyword filters are touted as safeguards, but these prerequisites will turn the internet into a low-trust and heavily-gated nightmare. This is antithetical to a free and open internet, and is reminiscent of the mandates which were imposed on society during the so-called pandemic. If memory serves, none of the measures of that era went too well in hindsight.
Besides, predators adapt, and parents, not governments, bear the real responsibility for their children’s online safety. There are ample parental control tools available today. At the end of the day, the system will lag behind, flagging innocent conversations while missing real threats.
In other words, law-abiding citizens will have their rights revoked for nothing.
This legislation sets a precedent so dangerous it cannot be overstated. If it passes, every EU citizen’s conversations would be permanently monitored, stored, and exploited. Encryption on most devices will be rendered useless, and the door will swing open for swift expansions of state power. The lack of democratic scrutiny- pushed forward without public input – compounds the outrage. MEPs are endorsing this without your consent, or feigning opposition with amendments that do not address the core issue. They’re betting you won’t notice until it’s too late.
Take Action
Take action now—urge your representatives to vote against this bill next month. Amendments do not cut it. Let them know that this bill must be rejected.
Christopher Attard is an opinion writer