Council document
13158/26: “Preparation for the trilogue”
The presidency’s note to the EU ambassadors for their meeting of 23 September 2026. It prepared the sixth political trilogue on the child sexual abuse regulation and ends with three questions to the governments.
- Number
- 13158/26
- Date
- 18 September 2026
- From
- The Council presidency (Ireland)
- To
- The Permanent Representatives Committee (Coreper, Part 2)
- Classification
- LIMITE
- Council register
- Title only
- Full text
- Published by Patrick Breyer: PDF. Reported by Agence Europe on 22 September 2026.
- Length
- Five pages
- Discussed
- Coreper (Part 2), 23 September 2026, item 9 (13105/2/26 REV 2)
- Prepares
- The sixth political trilogue, 29 September 2026
The three questions
The note ends with three questions to the ambassadors “in preparation of the trilogue on 29 September 2026”:
a) “Do you agree to establish (i) detection orders on publicly accessible content for known CSAM and (ii) own-initiative searches by providers on non-public content for known and new CSAM and the solicitation of children?”
b) “Do you agree in a spirit of compromise that own-initiative searches by providers on non-public content would require a search plan reviewed by a national judicial or independent administrative authority, and that providers would be obliged to make use of a database of indicators provided by the EU Centre?”
c) “If no compromise solution can be agreed providing at least for the same level of effectiveness as the current voluntary practice, would you accept to exclude own-initiative searches or detection orders on non-public content from the scope of this Regulation?”
Non-public content means, above all, private messages. “Own-initiative searches” are the providers’ voluntary scanning.
What else it says
- The trilogue “is dedicated to reaching general political agreement on detection obligations and own-initiative searches (Articles 7-11)”.
- On private content, the presidency “has consistently communicated the need to establish an effective regime that allows maintaining the current level of reports through the providers’ voluntary searches”, with a scope “unchanged compared to the CSA Interim Regulation, that is, to cover known and new CSAM, and the solicitation of children”.
- At a technical meeting on 18 September, the Parliament “indicated willingness to test an approach that would require providers to prepare search plans outlining the technologies used and other relevant safeguards subject to review by national judicial or independent administrative authorities”.
- The presidency proposed to target searches “to specific parts of a service or, where possible, to individual users”, and states that “requiring that searches are targeted to specific users only would not generate any added value compared to the possibilities already existing under criminal law”.
- On public content: “To avoid a general monitoring obligation, it is necessary that detection orders on publicly accessible content are limited to known CSAM”.
- If the trilogue confirms the technical agreement on searches by the EU Centre in public content, the presidency “next intends to launch the process for the establishment of the seat of the EU Centre”.
What it changed in this record
- The tracker links the note itself since 25 September 2026; its timeline entry for 18 September quotes the document.
- No government’s position changed. The note does not name any government.
- Record note: The presidency’s question: leave private messages out of the regulation? (25 September 2026).
Related documents
- 11956/26, “State of play and way forward”, 10 September 2026.
- WK 13816/26, four-column table with the outcome of the technical meeting of 10 September, 11 September 2026: not public, listed on Patrick Breyer’s Chat Control page.
- 9659/26, the presidency’s compromise texts on detection, 26 May 2026.
