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When changes to EU privacy rules cast doubt on whether certain communication services could lawfully continue voluntary efforts to detect child sexual abuse material (CSAM), the EU put in place a temporary legal measure to keep that work going. It was meant to be a bridge to a permanent solution. That bridge is now due to expire on 3 April 2026, with no extension agreed and no long-term replacement yet in place.

At first glance, that may sound like a legal or political issue happening somewhere else. It is not.

Technology-assisted child sexual abuse (TACSA) is not restricted by borders. A child can be abused in one country, live streamed into another, and have images shared across multiple jurisdictions within minutes. Material detected in the EU may involve children in the UK. Material created in the UK may be circulating through services used elsewhere in Europe. The harm does not stop at national borders, and neither do the consequences. That is why any weakening of child protection capacity in Europe affects all of us.

At the Marie Collins Foundation, we support children and families affected by TACSA and work to improve recovery and outcomes for victims and survivors. We know that the harm does not stay contained to one device, one platform or one country. We also know that the continued circulation of abuse imagery can deepen trauma and prolong harm.

This is not a theoretical concern. The last time this legal cover fell away, reports of detected CSAM from some EU-based services dropped sharply. The Internet Watch Foundation has said that during the previous gap there was a 58% reduction in reports to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children over 18 weeks.

The wider context is even more worrying now than it was then. The scale of online child sexual abuse has grown, the nature of the material is changing, and AI is making an already serious problem even harder to contain by enabling the creation of new abuse images and the further exploitation of children whose abuse has already been recorded. The IWF reported that it found 3,440 AI-generated child sexual abuse videos in 2025, up from 13 in 2024.

Child protection agencies in Europe should not be left trying to manage the consequences of political delay. They need systems that help them do their jobs, not legal uncertainty that makes those jobs harder. At a time when online abuse is becoming more complex and more scalable, removing an important route to identifying abuse is a dangerous direction of travel.

As a UK-based charity, we are not in the room for EU negotiations. But we are part of a global child protection landscape, and we can be clear about what is at stake. We stand with child protection agencies and organisations across Europe, and we support urgent action to prevent any weakening of the systems that help identify abuse and protect children. TACSA does not stop at borders, and neither should our concern.

The Marie Collins Foundation is among the 247 organisations that have signed a joint statement calling for urgent action to close this gap in child protection. The strength of that coalition reflects the seriousness of what is at stake — in Europe and beyond (see joint statement file below).

Children cannot afford legal blind spots.
Not online. Not in Europe. Not anywhere.