EU Parliament and civil liberties advocate Patrick Breyer warn that the proposed plans amount to mass surveillance of millions of innocent users without suspicion, risking clashes with EU law and potential strike-downs by the European Court of Justice.

There is a contingency plan if negotiations fail: exclude private chats from the regulation, which would leave a temporary chat control 1.0 loophole for voluntary mass scans.

Leaked internal EU Council documents show member states pushing for mass surveillance of private communications under the guise of search plans, potentially enabling broad scans of chat and email content through temporary authorizations.

Breyer urges the Parliament to reject a permanent rule before the transitional regulation is replaced, noting that about three-quarters of reported chats are legally irrelevant and many German investigations involve youths in consensual sexting, draining resources.

The EU Parliament favors a targeted approach with privacy protections and surveillance only under judicial oversight and specific suspicion, including stricter privacy settings, measures to block unsolicited contact, and a proposal for a new EU center to proactively search for known abuse material.

The plan would let national justice or independent authorities grant temporary blanket permissions to scan messages, aiming to institutionalize a permanent form of chat control beyond voluntary scans by platforms like Facebook and Google.

Council Legal Service opinions warn that broad scanning of entire services or large portions would likely violate EU law, risking future court challenges and loss of investigative capability if overturned.