The European Parliament has approved a temporary rule allowing social networks and messaging services to voluntarily scan users’ private messages for child sexual abuse material. The measure, known informally as “Chat Control 1.0”, would remain in force until April 2028.
How the vote unfolded
The temporary exemption that previously allowed this kind of voluntary scanning had lapsed after Parliament failed to agree to extend it. Parliament’s president, Roberta Metsola, used a procedural mechanism to bring the proposal back for a final vote.
Under that procedure, the measure could only be blocked by an absolute majority of 361 votes against. Opponents fell well short of that figure, so it passed. Member states still have to give their final approval.
The privacy question
EU law on electronic communications normally guarantees the confidentiality of private messages. Scanning them, even voluntarily and for this purpose, raises concerns about that principle — particularly for services that use end-to-end encryption, such as WhatsApp and Signal.
To address those concerns, Parliament added an amendment excluding encrypted messages from scanning. EU governments must decide whether to accept it.
Supporters
MEPs including Spain’s Javier Zarzalejos and Juan Fernando López Aguilar argued that the measure fills a legal gap that had left companies and police without a legal basis for detecting abuse material. They describe it as a temporary solution while a permanent law is agreed.
Critics
Privacy organisations, cybersecurity experts and hundreds of academics have warned that any system for scanning private communications risks opening the door to wider surveillance, and could be expanded in future to monitor ordinary conversations.
What comes next
The permanent Regulation on child sexual abuse, first proposed by the European Commission in 2022, is still being negotiated and has been one of the most divisive files in Brussels because of its implications for encryption. Zarzalejos, who leads work on it in Parliament, hopes a final text can be agreed by September.
The debate reflects a difficult balance between two goals that most people support: protecting children online and protecting the privacy of private communications.
