Poland will “never agree” to any EU legislation that would require instant messaging services such as Messenger, WhatsApp or Signal to monitor users for evidence of child abuse, the country’s digital affairs minister said.
Society Poland opposes mandatory EU ‘chat monitoring’ law to combat child abuse fot. TVP Maria Kamińska Edited by: Piotr Kononczuk 17.11.2025, 17:03 Photo: Envato/Kira_Yan, PAP/Radek Pietruszka Digital Affairs Minister Krzysztof Gawkowski said Poland would “never agree" to any mandatory scanning of private communications. Photo: Envato/Kira_Yan, PAP/Radek Pietruszka Poland will “never agree” to any EU legislation that would require instant messaging services such as Messenger, WhatsApp or Signal to monitor users for evidence of child abuse, the country’s digital affairs minister said.
Politics Under a revised version of the EU Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) regulation – approved for further work by an EU Council working group last week – instant messaging providers could voluntarily agree to scan users’ communications for child sexual abuse content.
This marks a watering down of an initial proposal – first presented in 2022 – which would have made message scanning mandatory for all platforms, including those offering end-to-end encryption designed to prevent unauthorized access to private communications.
The legislation has raised concerns over potential violations of privacy rights and has been repeatedly revised, so far failing to secure majority support among EU member states.
Commenting on the revised proposal, Poland’s Digital Affairs Minister Krzysztof Gawkowski, told state news agency PAP on Monday that his country would “never agree to any mandatory scanning", citing concerns over the privacy of communications.
“We are treating the search for a compromise on child protection as a priority and with great consideration,” he said.
“We want legislation that enables us to effectively combat paedophilia while at the same time ensuring the security of all citizens,” he added.
Gawkowski said the latest proposal – put forward by Denmark, which took over the rotating EU Council presidency from Poland in July – aligns with the approach Warsaw advocated during its own presidency of the Council in the first half of 2025.
He also said his team will “monitor the issue” as talks progress, adding that the Polish government’s position would depend on the final draft regulation.
Continue reading - https://tvpworld.com/90062380/poland-against-compulsory-eu-messaging-scans-to-fight-child-abuse
Yeah, there’s enough posted on the open web that one might, if unfortunate, encounter it. I’ve seen it randomly put up on FB once, by some spam account.
Then there was this creep running for office in Virginia on a platform of enslaving women and getting rid of age of consent laws… I unwisely went to his campaign site to see just how nuts he was, and the guy actually posted CP on there, with a “If elected, I’ll legalize THIS” rant underneath. It was pretty appalling. He was promptly thrown out of the Libertarian party, and soon afterward went to prison for exactly what you’d expect… and he thankfully killed himself pretty quickly.
It was relatively recently when I learned how prevalent it is on twitter. What I’ve learned about CP on the internet is that it’s all over the open web, but the platforms it’s shared on don’t seem to be very interested in cracking down. If the EU wanted to do something about it, they’d light a fire under some asses to regulate their own sites rather than roll out nonsense like this law.