The proposed regulation is likened to a universal backdoor that conflicts with secure encryption, threatening privacy rights and risking widespread intrusion despite claims of protecting citizens.

The EU's Chat Control regulation aims to fight child sexual abuse material by requiring platforms to detect, report, and remove illegal content, but it raises significant cybersecurity and privacy concerns.

Cybersecurity specialists warn that mandated scanning incompatible with end-to-end encryption would weaken user privacy, introduce new vulnerabilities, and potentially be exploited through backdoors.

The regulation would impose increased compliance burdens on tech companies, requiring management of government access requests, data retention, and audits, while also heightening security risks from nation-states and cybercriminals.

Experts argue that broad surveillance approaches are ineffective and unscalable, advocating instead for targeted, suspicion-based scanning, which still faces technical and ethical hurdles.

High implementation costs could block smaller European developers and open-source projects from entering the market, stifling innovation and increasing reliance on foreign cloud providers, thus weakening Europe's digital sovereignty.

Experts advocate for targeted safeguards like disrupting distribution networks, international cooperation, and education to protect children online, warning that mass surveillance would undermine Europe's leadership in digital rights and data protection.

Liability for false positives would fall on service providers, with governments expected to handle harms, but detection systems are likely to be inaccurate, overwhelming law enforcement with false reports.