European Parliament fails to block chat controls, message scanning extended until 2028

The European Parliament failed to prevent platforms from scanning private information until 2028

The European Parliament failed to prevent platforms from continuing scanning private information for child abuse content until 2028 because a motion to veto the rules failed to reach the required 361 votes. The EU\'s \"chat-controlled\" information-scanning system will continue to be implemented, although most MPs voting want the rule to be repealed.

No more private information in the EU

Patrick Breyer, a former member of the European Parliament and privacy activist for the Pirate Party, revealed that in a recent European Parliament vote, 314 members voted against the EU\'s chat control rules, with 276 in support. Another 17 people abstained. Since vetoing the measure requires an absolute majority of all members, rather than a simple majority of members present, 314 votes against it are still not enough. Another amendment to restrict information scanning to suspects flagged by the court also received greater support (322 votes to 255), but also failed because it did not reach an absolute majority.

Due to the voting results,\"Chat Control 1.0\" will be restarted. The rule was previously suspended because EU institutions were unable to agree on an extension. It is a temporary exemption clause that allows U.S. technology companies to scan direct messages from services such as Instagram, Discord, Snapchat, Gmail and iCloud without a warrant or prior suspicion.

The proposal was resubmitted for a vote by the centre-right European People\'s Party (EPP). European Parliament Speaker Roberta Metzora (EPP member) asked EU leaders to reopen discussions at a recent European Council meeting. Four European commissioners also wrote to members of the European Parliament urging them to pass the proposal. Metora\'s office said she was following the group leaders \'decision, but several lawmakers involved in the issue said they had not been informed of it in advance.

Simon de Brewer of the digital rights organization EDRi told reporters that the European Parliament was \"stabbed in the back by its own Speaker.\" Rand Hammoud of the European Center for Democracy and Technology said using the power of the largest political group to force a re-vote on a failed measure \"should be a concern for anyone who cares about the integrity of the institution.\"

Privacy advocates such as Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin also opposed the measure. \"Fight chat control. You cannot make society safe by making people uneasy,\"Butrin wrote on Platform X in September 2025. He believes that back doors to private communications \"must be hacked.\" NFT collector and free speech advocate 6529 reprinted Butrin\'s post on July 8 opposing the restart.

It is worth noting that a draft leaked to French media in 2024 and pointed out by Breyer showed that EU interior ministers tried to exempt professional accounts of police, military and intelligence personnel from the scanning requirement that they wanted to impose on the public. Butrin said this proved that officials knew the tools were unreliable.

Why does the platform scan information?

The regulation, officially known as the Child Sexual Abuse Regulations, was proposed in May 2022 by Ilva Johnson, then Commissioner of Home Affairs. Proponents, including the European Commission\'s own Directorate-General for Home Affairs, argue that the platform\'s voluntary testing is flawed and that the EU relies too much on the United States to flag abuses in the region. Opponents counter that scanning everyone\'s information amounts to mass surveillance. The European Council\'s own legal services body has warned that the practice conflicts with the right to privacy. A European Parliament study also concluded that abusive material cannot be detected on a large scale without producing a high rate of false positives.

Breyer cited German Federal Police data showing that 48% of alerts were not initially criminally relevant. He also pointed to European Commission data showing that scanning private chats generated only 36% of abuse reports in 2024. Breyer called the result \"a farce\" and \"damaging democracy,\" but said the fight for a permanent version \"has just begun.\" Although a symbolic exemption for encrypted chat has been added, as Breyer points out, services like WhatsApp have never been scanned in the first place.

Negotiations on a permanent framework, known as \"Chat Control 2.0\", will resume in September.