Fiala and Rakušan rejected the proposal to monitor people’s online communication

Prague  – Prime Minister Petr Fiala (ODS) rejected the proposal to monitor online communication of people aimed at combating child pornography and child abuse. He is concerned about the misuse of such a tool, which would breach the privacy of millions of people. He wrote this today on the social network X. In the European Union, there is no majority for the proposal, said Interior Minister Vít Rakušan (STAN) on the same network. Both reacted to a report from the server Novinky.cz about the so-called chat control.

“On behalf of myself and the entire coalition Together, I want to clearly say: we will not allow the monitoring of citizens’ private correspondence. We do not agree that it should be possible to monitor all emails or messages on platforms like WhatsApp or Messenger,” wrote the Prime Minister. According to him, protecting children is important, but it must be achieved in other ways. “Not that it will mean breaching the privacy of millions of people. That is dangerous and can be misused. That is why we have rejected it so far and will continue to reject it in the future,” he added.

“Chat control” in its current form will definitely not be supported by the Czech Republic, Rakušan stated. “At this moment, there is no qualified majority of member states for this measure,” he added.

Deputy Chairman of the opposition movement ANO Radek Vondráček wrote on network X that state surveillance has nothing to do with Western values. “Such steps are realistically pulling us to the East. The ANO movement has long fought for the preservation of civil liberties and will persist. ANO, we are pro-Western!” he added.

Chat control is based on a proposal from the European Commission from 2022 aimed at combating child sexual abuse. Online service providers, including chat applications, social networks, and data storage services, would be legally required to search the content of messages and stored files using algorithms. Providers would have to alert the relevant authorities about materials related to child pornography or the abuse of minors. Opponents of the proposal consider it a form of mass surveillance incompatible with democratic values, which could affect the privacy of people in the EU. (August 26)