Council Moves to Reinstate Interim Measure to Combat Child Sexual Abuse Online

The Council of the European Union adopted its position on a regulation to allow online service providers to resume voluntary detection and removal of child sexual abuse material on their platforms, extending the interim measure by two years while a long-term legislative framework remains under negotiation. The Council stated it wants the regulation to enter into force as soon as possible as a stopgap, with the position now moving to the European Parliament under second reading. Separately, the Council and Parliament reached a provisional agreement to update EU criminal law rules on child sexual abuse and sexual exploitation, expanding the scope of offences to include those linked to new online tools, with member states given three years to adapt national legislation once the agreement is formally adopted.

Voluntary detection regimes depend on platforms electing to scan and report: coverage is inconsistent, lapses when a provider withdraws, and offers no guarantee of intervention before material reaches a child. A detection architecture embedded in the messaging layer itself operates continuously, independent of provider policy, intercepting grooming, sextortion, and the solicitation or distribution of child sexual abuse material as the conversation unfolds. Guardii operates as that embedded layer, with anti-grooming, anti-sextortion, and anti-CSAM filters that flag harmful patterns in real time across Instagram, Snapchat, Discord, Roblox, and other platforms, reporting the shape and seriousness of a conversation rather than handing anyone a feed of what was said. Where voluntary frameworks offer intermittent coverage, targeted detection at the point of contact ensures no conversation evades scrutiny, and no child waits for a platform to act.