EU law inhibiting the monitoring of email, messaging, and other services that takes effect Dec. 20 would also restrict scanning for child sexual abuse imagery
Regulators argue that while abuse imagery on the internet is abhorrent, unchecked scanning for it by tech companies could violate privacy rights. Tweets: @gabrieldance , @alexstamos , @missingkids , @missingkids , @benedictevans , @satariano , @rasmus_kleis , @jeffjarvis , and @orinkerr Tweets: Gabriel Dance / @gabrieldance : facebook - the most prolific reporter of child sexual abuse imagery - will stop scanning for the illegal material in the european union should lawmakers not come to an agreement soon. it's the latest battle at the front of the online privacy war. https://www.nytimes.com/... Alex Stamos / @alexstamos : 1) The intentional use of online platforms to abuse both adults and children causes vastly more measurable harm to others than the nebulous privacy harms EU regulators obsess over. 2) 99% of the reduction of harm comes from proactive platform measures, not law enforcement. https://twitter.com/... Ncmec / @missingkids : “The grooming of children for sexual purposes is always about a child on the verge of or in the midst of abuse,” said John Shehan, a VP at NCMEC, the U.S. federal clearinghouse that works with tech companies and law enforcement agencies around the world. https://www.nytimes.com/... Ncmec / @missingkids : “We cannot allow children to be condemned to sexual exploitation online when we have the ability and the tools available to curtail this abuse.” @MissingKidsCEO Tell European Parliament: ePrivacy Must Put #ChildSafetyFirst! SIGN THE PETITION AND SHARE: https://www.change.org/... https://twitter.com/... Benedict Evans / @benedictevans : Privacy absolutists for child porn. https://www.nytimes.com/... Adam Satariano / @satariano : NEW: Privacy rules barring companies from monitoring electronic communications in Europe have entangled the hunt for child sexual abuse online. Facebook says it will stop most searches for the illegal content if the new policy takes effect. w/@gabrieldance https://www.nytimes.com/... Rasmus Kleis Nielsen / @rasmus_kleis : Trafe-offs and choices, trafe-offs and choices everywhere. ""They haven't given evidence needed to show this is proportionate," he said. “We don't open every letter in the mail to see if there is something illegal.” https://www.nytimes.com/... Jeff Jarvis / @jeffjarvis : Europe's privacy fundamentalism gets in the way of other social priorities, as I've long said.... E.U. Privacy Rule Would Rein In the Hunt for Online Child Sexual Abuse https://www.nytimes.com/... Orin Kerr / @orinkerr : Apropos the 6th Circuit case below, apparently the provider scanning practice may be banned in the EU soon absent a court order (which I assume means an EU-equivalent to a wiretap order), effectively ending it there, https://www.nytimes.com/... https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
In December 2020 the EU's privacy framework was about to make routine content monitoring legally risky: a law taking effect Dec. 20 restricts monitoring of email and messaging, and would sweep in the scanning tech companies run to detect child sexual abuse imagery. Facebook — described as the most prolific reporter of such material — said it would stop scanning in the EU if lawmakers did not agree on a fix.
That standoff set the template for the years of coverage that followed: an interim law let platforms keep scanning for three years (the 2021 stopgap), Commissioner Ylva Johansson then proposed mandatory scanning amid lobbying by scanning-tech vendors (later investigated by Balkan Insight), and by late 2025 EU states settled on a draft that does not force Big Tech to scan at all (the member-state position now in negotiation with lawmakers).
First-order effects
- Facebook would halt its CSAM scanning and reporting in the EU under the Dec. 20 law, cutting off the flow of referrals that feeds bodies like NCMEC in the U.S.
Second-order effects
- The threat of a reporting gap pushed EU lawmakers toward the interim carve-out that kept voluntary scanning legal, buying time for the broader legislative fight over mandatory detection.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, Europe's resolution — voluntary scanning permitted, mandated scanning rejected — hardens into a structural boundary between privacy law and platform surveillance, with child-safety obligations negotiated case by case rather than imposed wholesale.
The trend: EU regulation is drawing a durable line between voluntary platform scanning for abuse imagery and state-mandated surveillance, with each legislative round redefining where that line sits.