Malta’s MEPs oppose EU's ‘chat control’ law

Several of Malta’s MEPs oppose a proposed EU law to combat child abuse that digital rights activists say could introduce mass surveillance, although the Maltese government remains noncommittal.

The law, dubbed ‘chat control,’ was first proposed in 2022 and remained dormant for much of the following three years until Denmark revived it, putting it back on the agenda when it took on the EU presidency in July.

The proposed bill would make it mandatory, once instructed by a judge through a detection order, for tech platforms to introduce blanket scans of private chats, messages and e-mails to detect material linked to child abuse, including pornographic material and grooming attempts by sexual predators.

This would also apply to encrypted communication, such as WhatsApp chats, which would be scanned on the user’s device before being encrypted.

The bill’s supporters say this is crucial to catching illicit material before it can do harm, with enforcement agencies across Europe pushing to ban end-to-end encryption, citing its widespread use by criminal rings.

Privacy activists, however, slammed the bill as an attack on citizens’ privacy and fundamental rights, effectively opening the door to mass surveillance by law enforcement authorities.

In November 2023, the European Parliament’s committee on civil liberties (LIBE) attempted to water down some of the bill’s more contentious elements, calling for detection orders only to be issued as a last resort and pushing for end-to-end encrypted communications to be exempt from the rules. 

The committee also removed clauses mandating age verification for certain services, a measure which has already been introduced in some countries across the bloc, including France and Spain.

LIBE’s position was later endorsed by MEPs, with the ball now in Denmark’s court to propose a reworked version of the bill, before bringing legislators together to push it through.

No firm stance from Malta

Digital rights lobby groups warned that most member states support the legislation, with only Austria, Czechia, the Netherlands and Poland having indicated their opposition to the bill.

Malta has yet to formally adopt a position, with a spokesperson for the foreign affairs ministry remaining guarded in response to questions.

“The government supports efforts to strengthen measures for curbing child sexual abuse online, which has increased drastically in recent years,” the spokesperson said.

“Malta will continue striving towards an agreement in Council, which strikes the right balance between the protection of children and the privacy of individuals.”

Proposal goes too far, MEPs agree

Alex Agius Saliba

However, local MEPs who spoke to Times of Malta agree that although its goal to root out child abuse is a noble one, the bill represents a minefield.

Labour MEP Alex Agius Saliba has had a front-row seat in discussions over the bill, having been named the S&D negotiator on the topic.

The original bill was “a big infringement on the privacy of all European citizens,” he said, adding that it was “questionable” whether it would have stood up to a legal challenge.

The proposed bill’s impact on end-to-end encryption is “too high a cost” to pay, particularly since experts are still unsure of whether scanning messages would effectively tackle online child abuse.

“We cannot just throw encryption away and leave a backdoor open for anyone, even criminals or foreign entities, to listen and read our private messages,” Agius Saliba said.

He says he has been pushing for a series of changes to the proposed law, including limiting any scanning of encrypted material to its metadata, “without having access to the content of the encrypted communication”.

Peter Agius

PN MEP Peter Agius has a similar take.

“We cannot compromise end-to-end encryption,” he told Times of Malta, saying he is “against any systematic surveillance of communications and automatic detection system applied across the board to all platforms and all users”.

Instead, Agius says, Europe should leverage its power to encourage tech giants to assist enforcement agencies in member states, particularly in small countries like Malta.

“So no to generalised monitoring and screening but yes to more empowerment for national authorities to access communications in case of reasonable suspicion,” Agius said.

Ultimately, he added, “we want to root out child abuse, but we don’t need to treat every citizen as a potential abuser a priori”.

David Casa

Another PN MEP, David Casa, shares this view, describing himself as “extremely sceptical” of the bill.

“If privacy cannot be guaranteed, and if robust safeguards are not in place against weakening of end-to-end encryption, then I would not be able to support this law,” he said.

“Mass screening of private conversations is a non-starter,” Casa said, warning that “weakening encryption and opening the door to mass surveillance will not strengthen the fight against child abuse – it will only risk jeopardising everyone’s security and rights”.