Protecting children from sexual predators is an absolute priority. No citizen can oppose it. It is precisely for this reason that the debate surrounding « Chat Control » deserves better than slogans or simplistic accusations.

For several years, the European institutions have presented the analysis of private communications as an indispensable tool in the fight against child sexual abuse. The implied message is simple: if you reject this measure, you must be against protecting children. The Révolution movement categorically rejects this logic.

The fundamental question of effectiveness

The first question that must be asked is that of effectiveness. Child sexual abuse material has been circulating on the Internet for years. Journalistic investigations have shown that publicly accessible accounts on certain social networks share ambiguous images of minors, attract comments from predators and sometimes remain visible for long periods of time.

Many citizens feel that the major platforms already fail to enforce their own rules rigorously enough, thereby allowing communities of predators to operate far too freely.

More broadly, our society sometimes gives the impression that it is providing an inadequate response to crimes committed against children. Certain cases that have deeply affected public opinion, such as those of Lyannah or Grégory Lenoci, have fuelled a sense of incomprehension as to how certain dangerous individuals were able to remain free or were not stopped sooner.

When citizens attempt to make up for the inaction of public authorities

At the same time, we are seeing citizens who, exasperated by what they perceive as inaction on the part of public authorities, create fake profiles or avatars to identify alleged predators online. Some of these initiatives have brought to light particularly disturbing behaviour, sometimes involving hundreds of cases.

Yet the media debate sometimes focuses more on the legality of their methods than on the individuals they are seeking to expose. Among part of the population, this situation reinforces the feeling that the system is quicker to remind citizens of the limits of their actions than to provide reassurance about the effectiveness of the fight against predators.

A legitimate question therefore arises: why focus efforts on analysing the private communications of millions of citizens rather than on stricter enforcement of existing laws, strengthening the resources available to investigators, effectively enforcing sentences and rapidly removing clearly problematic content that is publicly accessible?

The confidentiality of correspondence is a fundamental freedom

Beyond the question of its effectiveness, « Chat Control » opens a fundamental debate about civil liberties. The confidentiality of correspondence is an essential principle in a democracy. Today, our private messages are the digital equivalent of our conversations at home or our personal mail.

Allowing the systematic analysis of these communications, even in the name of a legitimate objective, would create a precedent whose consequences must be examined with the utmost caution. Protecting children cannot justify the introduction of a mechanism capable of indiscriminately placing all citizens under surveillance.

History shows that surveillance tools created in response to a specific threat can, over time, see their scope of application expanded. This does not necessarily mean that the current authorities would seek to monitor political opponents. However, once installed, surveillance technology could be used tomorrow in a different political context or for purposes other than those initially announced.

Democracies are founded precisely upon safeguards designed to prevent an exceptional power from gradually becoming an ordinary practice.

Révolution rejects mass surveillance

Our concern is simple: any new surveillance capability must remain exceptional, targeted, strictly supervised by the judiciary, proportionate and based on serious evidence. Under no circumstances may it be applied indiscriminately to millions of citizens who are not suspected of any offence.

We reject the idea that citizens should have to choose between their security and their privacy. A democracy worthy of the name must be capable of protecting the most vulnerable without undermining the confidentiality of correspondence or introducing mass surveillance of communications.

Taking effective action against predators

The Révolution movement calls on political leaders to focus their efforts on concrete and genuinely effective measures:

• strengthen the human, technical and financial resources available to the police and the justice system;
• speed up investigations and judicial proceedings;
• ensure rigorous monitoring of individuals who pose a danger to minors;
• guarantee the effective enforcement of sentences handed down;
• provide more resources to services specialising in child protection;
• require platforms to remove clearly illegal content rapidly;
• preserve the confidentiality of correspondence, privacy and fundamental freedoms.

Protecting children is an obligation.
Preserving fundamental freedoms is another.

A genuinely effective policy must be capable of guaranteeing both, without sacrificing one in the name of the other.