Home › Archive › In the Media › Newsroom ČT24 | Chat Control: protecting children online, or invading everyone's privacy?Newsroom ČT24 | Chat Control: protecting children online, or invading everyone's privacy?
The European Union Council's proposal, called "Chat Control," aims to combat the spread of child pornography. However, it has sparked fierce controversy. More than 700 technology experts and academics from across Europe have criticized it in an open letter. According to them, Chat Control would interfere with users' privacy and is also technically problematic.Viktor Daněk, Executive Deputy Director and Head of the Prague Office of the EUROPEUM Institute, commented for the ČT24 Newsroom.
21. September 2025
It may happen that some genuinely harmful cases are overlooked, and what is perhaps even more serious is that completely innocent conversations may be flagged as dangerous.
It's a classic Czech story, where legislation lies in the Council among member states for several years, they negotiate it, including the Czech Republic, but at the political level, the commotion only arises when the moment of voting arrives, or just before it.
Here we see a cultural clash, because especially in northern Europe, it is perfectly normal for the state to play a greater role than it does in our part of the world. There is no controversy there over the idea that the state should be able to access private conversations. If there is reasonable suspicion, it will ultimately be the companies, not the state. But in our region, with our communist past, this is completely unthinkable.
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