Parliament extends child-abuse scan, bans encrypted chats

The European Parliament voted on Thursday, July 9, to extend a temporary legal framework that allows online platforms to voluntarily scan private communications for known child sexual abuse material. The decision, which followed a contentious and confusing procedural battle, reinstates a legal basis for companies like Meta, Google, and Microsoft to conduct such detection until April 3, 2028, while negotiations continue on a permanent EU regulation.

The interim rules, originally introduced in 2021, had expired on April 3 after lawmakers rejected an extension in March. The measure was revived this week through a rarely used urgent procedure that required an absolute majority of 361 votes to block it. While a majority of participating lawmakers voted against the Council's position-314 to 276, with 17 abstentions-they fell short of the threshold needed for rejection, allowing the extension to proceed.

A critical amendment was adopted during the vote, explicitly excluding end-to-end encrypted communications from the scope of the voluntary scanning. This means services like WhatsApp, Signal, and Messenger that apply such encryption cannot use the legal exemption to scan private...