Global Encryption Coalition Statement on Council of the EU Position on the European CSA Regulation

The Council of the European Union reached its position on the Child Sexual Abuse Regulation on 26 November 2026, with changes that better protect encryption for everyone, according to a statement from the Global Encryption Coalition Steering Committee. The agreed position removes mandatory detection obligations that would have required providers to indiscriminately scan personal communications for child sexual abuse material, including in end-to-end encrypted environments. Instead, it makes the derogation from the ePrivacy Directive permanent by allowing the voluntary use of scanning technologies in non-encrypted private messages, with a Commission assessment of the necessity and feasibility of making detection obligations mandatory to take place three years after the regulation comes into force. Previous versions of the proposal would have forced providers of encrypted communication services to introduce client-side scanning capabilities to scan users' messages for CSAM.

Voluntary scanning in non-encrypted channels leaves a structural enforcement gap that pattern-based detection can close without requiring platforms to weaken encryption. Guardii operates at the conversational layer, analysing the shape and seriousness of a direct-message exchange in real time to detect sustained targeting, escalation and coercion that signal grooming, sextortion or age-inappropriate contact, regardless of whether the underlying transport is encrypted. Because the platform reports threat patterns rather than handing anyone a feed of message content, it addresses the underlying harm without creating the privacy and security vulnerabilities associated with client-side scanning or mandatory access to plaintext. As a Meta Business Partner operating across encrypted and non-encrypted messaging platforms including Instagram, Snapchat, Discord and Roblox, Guardii demonstrates that targeted detection of hostile contact can surface a child in crisis to a parent, school or professional without the trade-offs the Council rejected, blocking abuse before it reaches the target and enabling rapid escalation to the right authority in an emergency.