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Pending Law Child Protection

EU CSAR (Proposed)

Proposal for a Regulation to prevent and combat child sexual abuse (CSAR)

Proposed permanent framework replacing interim derogation. Parliament position (Nov 2023) limits detection to known/new CSAM, excludes E2EE services. Council has not agreed General Approach.

Jurisdiction

European Union

Enacted

Pending

Effective

TBD

Enforcement

TBD

Trilogues began December 9, 2025. Council dropped mandatory chat scanning November 2025. Interim derogation expires April 3, 2026. Final deal expected by June 2026.

EUR-Lex

Why It Matters

If EU adopts detection-order model, becomes global reference—directly colliding with encrypted messaging and private AI chat.

Recent Developments

Council position (November 2025) dropped mandatory encrypted message scanning in favor of voluntary framework. Political trilogues scheduled Feb 26, May 4, June 29, 2026. EU Centre on Child Sexual Abuse to be established.

At a Glance

Applies to

Social PlatformOnline PlatformGeneral ChatbotAI Companion

Harms addressed

Child Exploitation

Who Must Comply

  • Online services and communications providers (scope TBD)

Obligations fall on:

Safety Provisions

  • Risk assessment + mitigation duties for at-risk services
  • Potential detection orders (contested)
  • EU Centre for coordination/reporting
  • Parliament: excludes E2EE, limits to known/new CSAM (not grooming)

Compliance & Enforcement

Penalties

Penalties pending regulatory determination

View on map

European Union

Focus Areas

Child safety
Active safeguards required

Compliance Help

If adopted with detection orders: scalable detection + reporting, auditability, strategy for encrypted contexts.

See how NOPE helps

Cite This

APA

European Union. (n.d.). Proposal for a Regulation to prevent and combat child sexual abuse (CSAR).

Related Regulations

In Effect EU

EU CSAM Interim

Temporary legal bridge allowing certain communications providers to voluntarily detect/report/remove CSAM, notwithstanding ePrivacy constraints. Extended via 2024/1307 while permanent CSAR negotiated.

In Effect EU

DSA

Comprehensive platform regulation with tiered obligations. VLOPs (45M+ EU users) face systemic risk assessments, algorithmic transparency, and independent audits.

In Effect DE

DE JuSchG §24a (KidD)

Requires providers of certain telemedia services to implement provider-side precautionary measures ("Vorsorgemaßnahmen") with regulator-facing evaluability via published BzKJ criteria.

In Effect GB

Ofcom Children's Codes

Ofcom codes requiring user-to-user services and search services to protect children from harmful content including suicide, self-harm, and eating disorder content. Explicitly covers AI chatbots that enable content sharing between users. Requires detection technology, content moderation, and recommender system controls.

In Effect FR

FR SREN

France's 2024 "digital space" law strengthening national digital regulation and enforcement levers via ARCOM across platform safety and integrity issues.

In Effect IE

Ireland OSMR

Establishes Coimisiún na Meán (Media Commission) with binding duties for video-sharing platforms. One of the cleaner examples of explicit self-harm/suicide/eating-disorder content duties in platform governance.

All regulations Check if this applies to you

Last updated February 11, 2026. Verify against primary sources before relying on this information.