Denmark surprisingly abandons plans for Chat Control

The Danish EU Council Presidency has abandoned its plan to oblige providers of communication services to search for depictions of child sexual abuse, according to Danish Minister of Justice Peter Hummelgard. A spokesperson for the Council Presidency stated this upon inquiry by heise online, thereby confirming a report by Danish broadcaster (DR).

Denmark's government, which presides over the Council of EU Member States until the end of the year, is tasked with achieving agreements between the states. It is thus abandoning one of the most controversial projects of recent months due to a lack of prospects for success. For weeks, the Danish Council Presidency had attempted to convince other member states of its proposal, according to which providers of communication services could have been obliged to actively search for potentially child-pornographic or abuse depictions.

The U-turn in Copenhagen is likely also due to internal government disputes: while the Danish Social Democrats found the proposal to be good, the coalition partner Moderaterne distanced itself from the initiative.

Farewell to chat control

In Germany too, the positioning of the new federal government shortly before a decisive vote had caused massive discord within the coalition and the government factions – MPs from the government factions complained that they had not been sufficiently involved. Following this, the Danish Council Presidency postponed the vote from the next meeting of the interior ministers.

The last chance for an agreement under Danish leadership is in December; the government in Copenhagen apparently preferred a compromise without chat control to no agreement at all. The current regulation, which allows the large platform providers to voluntarily and actively search for potential depictions of abuse, expires next spring after extension. It is precisely this voluntariness that Denmark's Minister of Justice now wants to codify within the framework of the future CSA regulation, which also contains a multitude of other, less controversial projects.

(vbr)