The European Parliament has passed legislation allowing tech companies to scan messages for child sexual abuse material by 2028. It’s a controversial law that critics have dubbed “chat policing.”

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

The vote favors restoring “chat control” rules that expired in April and were a controversial topic among privacy and cryptography advocates because the law as originally designed violates the principle of encrypting messages.

Parliament, however passed some ill leave to exclude “communications that use, have used, or will use end-to-end encryption,” giving a slim win to cypherpunks.

Pirate Party MEP Markéta Gregorová, whose party proposed an amendment to disable fully encrypted messages, he said his success was a “bittersweet victory”.

“Protecting encryption was one of our priorities, so I’m glad we were able to get an absolute majority for an amendment that at least preserves encryption. At the same time, however, voluntary mass scanning unfortunately passed,” she said.

Supporters of this law argue that protecting children and combating the spread of offensive materials is indispensable.

Parliament’s bills and amendments will be sent back to the EU Council, a body of ministers from the bloc’s member states, which will approve or reject the legislation.

The battle for chat control is ‘just beginning’

Thursday’s vote follows the European Parliament’s vote on Tuesday in a rarely used emergency procedure that prompted lawmakers to vote again on extending the legal framework for laws that expired in April.

Once this framework expires, messaging platforms like WhatsApp can take their own voluntary actions to find people sharing offensive material.

In March, Parliament rejected a ephemeral extension of the program, while a novel, lasting version of the law, called “Chat Control 2.0”, was under discussion before the European People’s Party, the largest group in parliament, reinstated the extension in an emergency vote on Tuesday.

The party largely voted against extending the rules in March because of amendments limiting the scope of scanning, but its leader Manfred Weber is looking for ways to push through the extension as is.

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Breyer, a former member of the European Parliament, said that “the political battle for a permanent Chat Control 2.0 feature is only just beginning.”

“The resistance we saw in Parliament today was so strong that finding a majority for sustained, suspicion-free mass scanning in future negotiations is a complete pipe dream,” he said.

Negotiations on a lasting bill, called “Chat Control 2.0,” will resume in September, with lawmakers arguing over whether message scanning should be targeted or broadly used.

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