EU parliament passes ‘chat control,’ allowing private chat scans until 2028

EU lawmakers have again allowed tech firms to scan chats for abuse material, but exempted end-to-end encrypted messages.

The European Parliament has passed legislation allowing tech firms to scan messages for child sexual abuse material until 2028, a controversial law dubbed “chat control” by critics.

EU lawmakers on Thursday largely voted against extending the regulation, dubbed “Chat Control 1.0,” but stopping it required 361 lawmakers to reject it. Only 314 voted to stop the law, and 276 supported it.

The vote advances reviving the “chat control” rule that expired in April, and has been a controversial topic among privacy and cryptography advocates, as the originally designed law breaks the principle behind encrypting messages.

Parliament, however, passed an exemption to exclude “communications to which end-to-end encryption is, has been or will be applied," handing a small win to cypherpunks.

Pirate Party MEP Markéta Gregorová, whose party put forward the amendment to exempt end-to-end encrypted messages, said its success was “a bittersweet victory.” 

“Protecting encryption was one of our priorities, and I am therefore glad that we managed to secure an absolute majority for an amendment that at least preserves encryption. At the same time, however, voluntary mass scanning unfortunately passed,” she said.

The law’s supporters argue it is vital to protect children and combat the spread of abusive material.

The parliament's laws with amendments will be sent back to the Council of the EU, a body of ministers from the bloc’s member nations who will approve or reject the legislation.

The vote on Thursday comes after the European Parliament voted through a rarely used urgent procedure on Tuesday that brought lawmakers back to vote on whether to extend a legal framework for the laws that expired in April.

Since the framework expired, messaging platforms such as WhatsApp have been allowed to take their own voluntary measures to seek out those sharing abusive material.

In March, Parliament rejected a temporary extension of the regulation while a permanent version of the law, dubbed “Chat Control 2.0,” was under discussion; the European People's Party, the largest group in Parliament, revived the extension in the urgent procedure vote on Tuesday.