Ministers talk before the home affairs session of the informal meeting of EU justice and home affairs ministers at Dublin Castle, 16 July 2026. Photo: Council of the EU, © European Union, 2026.
Not every presidency working document reaches the Council’s public register. This one did. Document WK 10939/2026 of 24 July 2026 is a reflection paper on detection obligations and own-initiative searches, five pages on the proposal for a regulation laying down rules to prevent and combat child sexual abuse. It puts five questions to delegations, sets a deadline for their written replies, and lays out the calendar that has governed September.
What it says
The purpose is stated plainly: to investigate “potential paths towards agreement on own-initiative searches and detection orders between co-legislators for the trilogue on 29 September 2026”. The closing section is plainer still: “The Presidency seeks to achieve political agreement on detection obligations and own-initiative searches at the sixth trilogue, which will take place at the Council premises on 29 September 2026.”
The five questions ask whether own-initiative searches by providers in public content need any further regulation; whether the EU Centre should be tasked with such searches; whether detection orders in public content should cover at least known child sexual abuse material; how detection orders and searches in non-public content targeted to specific users linked to child sexual abuse could work in practice, and how those users would be defined; and whether the presidency should explore other options altogether. Written replies were due by Thursday, 3 September 2026, close of business. The paper also asks member states that have not yet done so to review document 9656/26, the Cyprus presidency’s compromise on detection of May 2026.
The two positions, in the presidency’s own words
The paper sets out what each side has said. Among the principles tabled by the European Parliament in response to the Cyprus presidency’s proposal: “No generalised scanning on non-public content”, “End-to-end encryption in interpersonal communications must be fully protected”, and “No detection orders or own-initiative searches for new CSAM or grooming”. On the other side it records “the clear preference of a majority of delegations in the Council to continue with the practice of own-initiative searches by providers for known and new CSAM and the solicitation of children”.
The dates
Written replies by 3 September. Interinstitutional technical meetings on 10 and 18 September. “Delegations will be updated in a meeting of JHA Counsellors on 14 September 2026.” “Political guidance from the Permanent Representatives Committee may be requested on 23 September 2026.” Then the sixth trilogue on 29 September, at the Council premises.
What it changes in the record
The document joins the sources of the Chat Control Tracker. It adds one date this site did not carry: 23 September, when the Permanent Representatives Committee may be asked for political guidance before the trilogue. It changes no count on Where the 27 governments stand, because a reflection paper records no positions by country. And it settles a small question of naming: this site has written of five trilogues, and the presidency’s own paper calls the meeting of 29 June 2026 the fifth and the meeting of 29 September the sixth.
Record notes are short, dated entries: one document, what it says, what it changes on this site. Source: Council of the EU, reflection paper on detection obligations and own-initiative searches, document WK 10939/2026 of 24 July 2026, public register, sections 1 to 4.
