EU governments might soon implement messaging surveillance, euphemistically labelled as chat control, based on a new proposal by Belgium's Minister of the Interior. According to a leak obtained by Pirate Party MEP and shadow rapporteur Patrick Breyer ,
this could happen as early as June. The proposal mandates that users of communication apps must agree to have all images and videos they send automatically scanned and potentially reported to the EU and police. This agreement would be obtained
through terms and conditions or pop-up messages. To facilitate this, secure end-to-end encrypted messenger services would need to implement monitoring backdoors, effectively causing a ban on private messaging. The Belgian proposal frames this as upload
moderation, claiming it differs from client-side scanning. Users who refuse to consent would still be able to send text messages but would be barred from sharing images and videos. The proposal first introduced on 8 May, has surprisingly gained
support from several governments that were initially critical. It will be revisited on 24 May, and EU interior ministers are set to meet immediately following the European elections to potentially approve the legislation. | 
