EU lawmakers are preparing to vote Thursday on whether to revive the so-called ‘chat control’ rules, legislation that would require tech companies to scan private messages for child sexual abuse material. The vote follows a narrow procedural decision on Tuesday that fast-tracked the issue back onto the parliamentary agenda.
As reported by Cointelegraph, the European Parliament voted 331 to 304, with 11 abstentions, to invoke an urgent procedure that forces Thursday’s vote. Critics say the move bypassed normal parliamentary rules and brought back a proposal that had already been rejected.
Pirate Party MEP Marketa Gregorova was direct in her criticism: ‘Today’s vote violates our own rules of procedure. The European People’s Party is abusing its position as the largest political group to bring back, through a procedural loophole, a proposal that Parliament had already rejected.’
The stakes for Thursday’s vote are high. To reject or amend the proposal, opponents need an absolute majority of 361 votes. That is a harder bar to clear than a simple majority, and it means even a large opposition bloc could fall short if turnout is uneven.
This is not the first time the legislation has been contested. In March, Parliament rejected a temporary extension proposed by the European Commission by a vote of 311 against, 228 for, and 92 abstaining. The European People’s Party, the largest group in Parliament, largely voted against it then because of amendments that limited the scope of the message scanning. Since then, party leader Manfred Weber has been looking for ways to push the extension through without those restrictions.
The broader context matters here. The original legal framework that allowed online platforms to voluntarily scan messages expired in early April. Since then, messaging services like WhatsApp have been operating under their own voluntary measures to detect and report abusive content. If Thursday’s vote passes, that voluntary approach would be replaced with a binding obligation to scan communications, including end-to-end encrypted messages.
That last point is where privacy and cryptography advocates draw the line. End-to-end encryption is designed so that only the sender and recipient can read a message. Scanning those messages, even for legitimate child safety reasons, requires either breaking that encryption or building a backdoor into it. Security researchers have consistently warned that any backdoor created for one purpose can be exploited for others.
EU member states have already moved in one direction. Last month, they agreed to reinstate an interim ‘chat control’ measure that would allow service providers to detect, report, and remove abusive material until 2028. Thursday’s parliamentary vote will determine whether the legislative branch falls in line or pushes back again.
The outcome will have real consequences for how hundreds of millions of people communicate across Europe, and for the companies that build the tools they use.