EU Parliament greenlights Chat Control 1.0 – Breyer: "Our children lose out"
4 hours ago
- #Mass Surveillance
- #Chat Control
- #EU Privacy
- The European Parliament allowed the suspicionless mass scanning of private communications (Chat Control 1.0) to pass, despite a majority of voting MEPs opposing it, due to procedural rules requiring an absolute majority to reject.
- An exemption for encrypted communications was adopted, but in practice, service providers do not scan these anyway. An amendment to restrict scanning to suspects identified by the judiciary also failed to secure the required majority.
- Critics, including Dr. Patrick Breyer, warn that Chat Control damages democracy, jeopardizes genuine child protection, and serves as a smokescreen that delays real action while overwhelming police with false alarms.
- The interim regulation will remain in effect until 2028 or until a permanent agreement is reached. Negotiations for permanent law (Chat Control 2.0) will resume in September, with disputes over indiscriminate vs. targeted scanning.
- Under Chat Control 1.0, US tech companies can scan private messages without a warrant on platforms like Instagram and Gmail, but end-to-end encrypted chats (e.g., WhatsApp) and European providers are exempt.
- Data shows that mass scanning has limited effectiveness: abuse reports from the US dropped by 50% due to encryption, only 36% of reports came from private chats in 2024, and many alerts are not criminally relevant or target minors.
- Survivors of sexual violence argue that untargeted Chat Control does not help victims, emphasizing the need for privacy to seek justice and criticizing it as a tool for Big Tech profiteering and state mass surveillance.
- Negotiations for a permanent CSAM Regulation are stalled as EU member states insist on voluntary, suspicionless scanning, while the Parliament advocates for targeted detection orders, an EU Child Protection Centre, and strict security standards.