End of private chats? Inside Europe's Chat Control 1.0 controversial push

The European Parliament in controversial push has extended “Chat Control 1.0” on Thursday allowing the tech giants to read chats and private communications to detect child sexual abuse material.

The extension, dubbed as “Orwellian” by critics, was approved through procedural manoeuvre bypassing the requirement of direct vote on the law’s substance.

After the approval, the Chat Control regulation will remain in effect until 3 April, 2028.

After being rejected in March, the file was reopened in late June by Parliament President Roberta Metsola and sent back during a vacation period, making it difficult for opponents to gather the necessary majority to block it.

On Thursday, the approval of extension was rejected with 314 MEPs voting in favor, 276 against, and 17 abstentions. But the motion to reject the amended position failed because it failed to reach the absolute majority threshold, equating to 360 votes, despite having more votes in favor than against.

Under the amended Chat Control, “the communications to which end-to-end encryption is, has been, or will be applied from the scope of law.”

Many experts and politicians are skeptical of this amendment, noting that it contradicts the premise of mass scanning and is likely to be rejected by the Council.

It means anything unencrypted running over a third-party server is scannable. It includes direct messages on Instagram, Facebook Messenger, Gmail, Outlook inbox and even the photos in regular cloud.

According to the critics, such as MEP Svenja Hahn, the law paves towards mass surveillance rather than targeted law enforcement.

The President of the Open Dialogue Foundation, Lyudmyla Kozlovska said, “That vote should trouble anyone who cares about how democracy in the EU works, not just about privacy. It’s the same approach to normalising the erosion of privacy that we’ve seen before — first with financial privacy, then travellers’ data, now our communications.”

The more dreadful thing is the next step based on introducing “Chat Control 2.0” which would permanently target encryption and digital privacy. Such legislative battles are expected in September.