Proposed the EU rules to screen WhatsApp, iMessage, and Snapchat accounts for child abuse content have run into significant roadblocks.

Under the proposed rules, every encrypted messaging provider could be forced to sift through billions of messages, videos and photos to 'flag' specific types of content if there is a suspicion that they are being used to distribute harmful content. Providers would have to alert the police if they found evidence of suspected sharing of harmful content or child grooming and would be issued a 'detection order' by national authorities.

Privacy campaigners and service providers have already warned that the proposed the EU regulation, and a similar Online safety bill in the UK, could see end-to-end encrypted services such as WhatsApp disappear from Europe. The EU lawyers warn that the European Court of Justice has previously ruled that interception of communications metadata is 'proportionate only to safeguard national security', so the proposed regulation seriously risks failing to meet the proportionality principle.