Swedish politicians have reacted strongly to a controversial but government-backed EU proposal to improve the detection and removal of child sexual abuse material in text messages.
The proposal, known in Sweden as the “chat control law”, has received the support of most Swedish parties – with the exception of the Centre Party (Renew Europe) and the Sweden Democrats (SD, ECR) – after a partial adjustment in the Swedish parliament’s justice committee, and will now be sent to the EU affairs committee.
The proposal was presented at EU level in 2022 by Swedish EU Commissioner Ylva Johansson and concerns how internet giants should deal with offensive material online.
The document sat in the Council for months due to opposition from Paris and Berlin, with the main point of contention being what the law could mean for end-to-end encryption – a technology that only identifies the sender and recipient of content.
However, a new compromise sent to COREPER this week may finally break the deadlock, perhaps thanks to French support.
The compromise, seen by Euractiv, eliminates audio links and puts the proposed centralised agency and Commission in charge of assessing how privacy is respected when identifying child sexual abuse material (or CSAM). Justice Minister Gunnar Strömmer wrote to the Swedish press agency TT after the breakthrough in the Swedish parliament’s justice committee, saying his government was ready to take the next steps:
We now assess that important steps have been taken.
Parliamentarians against the bill
Although the legislative committee accepted the text, it was opposed by parties generally unwilling to co-operate, including the far right, centrist liberals and even the far left.
Ulrika Liljeberg, the Centre Party’s legal policy spokeswoman, said she felt the proposal had not changed sufficiently from the original draft, although she said it was important to prevent the spread of child pornography. She noted:
What we weigh against this interest is that many people need to have access to encrypted communication services. For example, vulnerable people and democracy movements.
The same can be said for the Sweden Democrats, who have condemned the encryption attack and the government promises they say have been broken.
According to Left Party MP Gudrun Nordborg, as the controversy heats up in Sweden, Left Party MPs have also come out against the proposal to introduce chat controls, claiming that a mistake was made during the committee vote. Nordborg said:
There was a mistake at the committee meeting, I should have reported a dissenting opinion.
