Europe’s child safety laws require collecting the data its privacy laws forbid

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April 24, 2026, 9:00 PM

• •EU's ePrivacy derogation allowing voluntary CSAM scanning expired.
• •New age verification app was hacked within minutes of release.
• •CSA Regulation (Chat Control) remains unresolved, stuck in trilogue.
• •European Court of Human Rights has ruled against encryption backdoors.
• •GDPR, DSA, and proposed CSA Regulation require age verification, conflicting with data minimization principles.
• •Individual member states are implementing age restrictions with no unified enforcement.

Europe faces a significant challenge in balancing online child protection with its existing privacy regulations. Efforts to scan for child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and verify ages are hampered by privacy laws like GDPR, which restrict data collection. The expiration of the ePrivacy derogation, the failure of a new age verification app, and the stalled CSA Regulation (Chat Control) highlight these difficulties. This conflict creates a regulatory system where protecting children requires actions that contradict privacy principles, leaving Europe struggling to find effective solutions.

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